Creating AIX no rewind device files for tape drives
NetBackup uses no rewind device files for tape drives and for NetBackup SAN Clients. During system startup, the AIX cfgmgr command configures all the devices that are necessary to use the system. If necessary, you can use the following procedure to check for and create a no rewind device file.
To check for and create a no rewind device file
- Display the I/O controllers in the system by using the following command:
/usr/sbin/lsdev -C | grep I/O
The following sample output shows that SCSI controller 1 (00-01) has been assigned the logical identifier scsi0.
scsi0 Available 00-01 SCSI I/O Controller
- Display the SCSI and Fibre Channel devices in the system by using the following command. For SCSI devices, use scsi for the type; for Fibre Channel Protocol devices, use fcp for the type.
/usr/sbin/lsdev -C -s type
The following example shows two disk drives and a tape drive:
hdisk0 Available 00-01-00-0,0 400 MB SCSI Disk Drive hdisk1 Available 00-01-00-1,0 400 MB SCSI Disk Drive rmt0 Available 00-01-00-3,0 Other SCSI Tape Drive
If the device files for the tape drives exist, they appear in the output as rmt0, rmt1, and so on. The previous example output shows rmt0.
- If a device file does not exist for the wanted tape drive, create it by using the following command:
/usr/sbin/mkdev -c tape -s scsi -t ost -p controller -w id,lun
The following are the arguments for the command:
controller is the logical identifier of the drive's SCSI adapter, such as scsi0, fscsi0, or vscsi1.
scsi_id is the SCSI ID of the drive connection.
lun is the logical unit number of the drive connection.
For example, the following command creates a device file for a non-IBM 8-mm drive connected to controller scsi0 at SCSI address 5,0:
mkdev -c tape -s scsi -t ost -p scsi0 -w 5,0
- To verify, display the SCSI device files by using the lsdev command, as follows:
/usr/sbin/lsdev -C -s scsi hdisk0 Available 00-01-00-0,0 400 MB SCSI Disk Drive hdisk1 Available 00-01-00-1,0 400 MB SCSI Disk Drive rmt0 Available 00-01-00-3,0 Other SCSI Tape Drive rmt1 Available 00-01-00-5,0 Other SCSI Tape Drive
The output shows that the rmt1 device file was created.
- If the device files do not exist on an FCP controller, use the following command to create them:
/usr/sbin/cfgmgr -l device
device is the controller number from step 1.
- Ensure that the device is configured for variable-mode and extended file marks. Use the chdev command, as follows (dev is the logical identifier for the drive (for example, rmt1)).
/usr/sbin/chdev -l dev -a block_size=0 /usr/sbin/chdev -l dev -a extfm=yes
- To configure the drive manually in NetBackup, enter the following device file pathname:
/dev/rmt1.1