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  1. Home
  2. Veritas NetBackup™ Device Configuration Guide
  3. Section I. Operating systems
  4. Solaris
  5. About Solaris tape drive device files
Veritas NetBackup™ Device Configuration Guide

About Solaris tape drive device files

NetBackup uses the tape drive device files that support compression, no rewind on close, and Berkeley style close.

When you configure the Solaris st driver, Solaris creates the device files for the attached tape devices

See Installing/reinstalling the sg and the st drivers.

The device files are in the /dev/rmt directory, and they have the following format:

/dev/rmt/IDcbn

The following describe the device file names:

  • ID is the logical drive number as shown by the NetBackup sgscan command.

  • c indicates compression.

  • b indicates Berkeley-style close.

  • n indicates no rewind on close.

If you use device discovery in NetBackup, NetBackup discovers the device files and hence the devices. If you add a tape drive to a NetBackup configuration manually, you must specify the pathname to the device file. NetBackup requires compression, no rewind on close, and Berkeley-style close device files.

To display the tape device files that are configured on your system, use the sgscan command with the tape parameter, as follows:

# /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/sgscan tape
/dev/sg/c1tw500104f0008d53c3l0: Tape (/dev/rmt/0): "HP      Ultrium 3-SCSI"
/dev/sg/c1tw500104f0008d53c6l0: Tape (/dev/rmt/1): "HP      Ultrium 3-SCSI"
/dev/sg/c1tw500104f0008d53c9l0: Tape (/dev/rmt/2): "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD3"
/dev/sg/c1tw500104f0008d53ccl0: Tape (/dev/rmt/3): "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD3"
/dev/sg/c2t2l0: Tape (/dev/rmt/22): "HP      Ultrium 3-SCSI"                                                                        
/dev/sg/c2t3l0: Tape (/dev/rmt/10): "HP      Ultrium 3-SCSI"                                                                        
/dev/sg/c2tal0: Tape (/dev/rmt/18): "IBM      ULTRIUM-TD3"                                                                           
/dev/sg/c2tbl0: Tape (/dev/rmt/19): "IBM      ULTRIUM-TD3"

The following are examples of no-rewind, compression, Berkeley-style close device files from the preceding sgscan example output:

  • For the Ultrium3 SCSI drive at LUN 0 of World Wide Node Name (WWNN) 500104f0008d53c3, the device file pathname is:

    /dev/rmt/0cbn

  • For the HP Ultrium3 SCSI drive at SCSI ID 2 of adapter 2, the device file pathname is:

    /dev/rmt/22cbn

You can show all device types by using the all option. The output can help you associate tape devices with other SCSI devices that may be configured on the same adapter. The following is the sgscan usage statement:

sgscan [all|basic|changer|disk|tape] [conf] [-v]

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Examples of SCSI and FCP robotic control device files on Solaris

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About Berkeley-style close

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