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-README file for the osst driver
-===============================
-(w) Kurt Garloff <garloff@suse.de> 12/2000
-
-This file describes the osst driver as of version 0.8.x/0.9.x, the released
-version of the osst driver.
-It is intended to help advanced users to understand the role of osst and to
-get them started using (and maybe debugging) it.
-It won't address issues like "How do I compile a kernel?" or "How do I load
-a module?", as these are too basic.
-Once the OnStream got merged into the official kernel, the distro makers
-will provide the OnStream support for those who are not familiar with
-hacking their kernels.
-
-
-Purpose
--------
-The osst driver was developed, because the standard SCSI tape driver in
-Linux, st, does not support the OnStream SC-x0 SCSI tape. The st is not to
-blame for that, as the OnStream tape drives do not support the standard SCSI
-command set for Serial Access Storage Devices (SASDs), which basically
-corresponds to the QIC-157 spec.
-Nevertheless, the OnStream tapes are nice pieces of hardware and therefore
-the osst driver has been written to make these tape devs supported by Linux.
-The driver is free software. It's released under the GNU GPL and planned to
-be integrated into the mainstream kernel.
-
-
-Implementation
---------------
-The osst is a new high-level SCSI driver, just like st, sr, sd and sg. It
-can be compiled into the kernel or loaded as a module.
-As it represents a new device, it got assigned a new device node: /dev/osstX
-are character devices with major no 206 and minor numbers like the /dev/stX
-devices. If those are not present, you may create them by calling
-Makedevs.sh as root (see below).
-The driver started being a copy of st and as such, the osst devices'
-behavior looks very much the same as st to the userspace applications.
-
-
-History
--------
-In the first place, osst shared its identity very much with st. That meant
-that it used the same kernel structures and the same device node as st.
-So you could only have either of them being present in the kernel. This has
-been fixed by registering an own device, now.
-st and osst can coexist, each only accessing the devices it can support by
-themselves.
-
-
-Installation
-------------
-osst got integrated into the linux kernel. Select it during kernel
-configuration as module or compile statically into the kernel.
-Compile your kernel and install the modules.
-
-Now, your osst driver is inside the kernel or available as a module,
-depending on your choice during kernel config. You may still need to create
-the device nodes by calling the Makedevs.sh script (see below) manually.
-
-To load your module, you may use the command
-modprobe osst
-as root. dmesg should show you, whether your OnStream tapes have been
-recognized.
-
-If you want to have the module autoloaded on access to /dev/osst, you may
-add something like
-alias char-major-206 osst
-to a file under /etc/modprobe.d/ directory.
-
-You may find it convenient to create a symbolic link
-ln -s nosst0 /dev/tape
-to make programs assuming a default name of /dev/tape more convenient to
-use.
-
-The device nodes for osst have to be created. Use the Makedevs.sh script
-attached to this file.
-
-
-Using it
---------
-You may use the OnStream tape driver with your standard backup software,
-which may be tar, cpio, amanda, arkeia, BRU, Lone Tar, ...
-by specifying /dev/(n)osst0 as the tape device to use or using the above
-symlink trick. The IOCTLs to control tape operation are also mostly
-supported and you may try the mt (or mt_st) program to jump between
-filemarks, eject the tape, ...
-
-There's one limitation: You need to use a block size of 32kB.
-
-(This limitation is worked on and will be fixed in version 0.8.8 of
- this driver.)
-
-If you just want to get started with standard software, here is an example
-for creating and restoring a full backup:
-# Backup
-tar cvf - / --exclude /proc | buffer -s 32k -m 24M -B -t -o /dev/nosst0
-# Restore
-buffer -s 32k -m 8M -B -t -i /dev/osst0 | tar xvf - -C /
-
-The buffer command has been used to buffer the data before it goes to the
-tape (or the file system) in order to smooth out the data stream and prevent
-the tape from needing to stop and rewind. The OnStream does have an internal
-buffer and a variable speed which help this, but especially on writing, the
-buffering still proves useful in most cases. It also pads the data to
-guarantees the block size of 32k. (Otherwise you may pass the -b64 option to
-tar.)
-Expect something like 1.8MB/s for the SC-x0 drives and 0.9MB/s for the DI-30.
-The USB drive will give you about 0.7MB/s.
-On a fast machine, you may profit from software data compression (z flag for
-tar).
-
-
-USB and IDE
------------
-Via the SCSI emulation layers usb-storage and ide-scsi, you can also use the
-osst driver to drive the USB-30 and the DI-30 drives. (Unfortunately, there
-is no such layer for the parallel port, otherwise the DP-30 would work as
-well.) For the USB support, you need the latest 2.4.0-test kernels and the
-latest usb-storage driver from
-http://www.linux-usb.org/
-http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=3581
-
-Note that the ide-tape driver as of 1.16f uses a slightly outdated on-tape
-format and therefore is not completely interoperable with osst tapes.
-
-The ADR-x0 line is fully SCSI-2 compliant and is supported by st, not osst.
-The on-tape format is supposed to be compatible with the one used by osst.
-
-
-Feedback and updates
---------------------
-The driver development is coordinated through a mailing list
-<osst@linux1.onstream.nl>
-a CVS repository and some web pages.
-The tester's pages which contain recent news and updated drivers to download
-can be found on
-http://sourceforge.net/projects/osst/
-
-If you find any problems, please have a look at the tester's page in order
-to see whether the problem is already known and solved. Otherwise, please
-report it to the mailing list. Your feedback is welcome. (This holds also
-for reports of successful usage, of course.)
-In case of trouble, please do always provide the following info:
-* driver and kernel version used (see syslog)
-* driver messages (syslog)
-* SCSI config and OnStream Firmware (/proc/scsi/scsi)
-* description of error. Is it reproducible?
-* software and commands used
-
-You may subscribe to the mailing list, BTW, it's a majordomo list.
-
-
-Status
-------
-0.8.0 was the first widespread BETA release. Since then a lot of reports
-have been sent, but mostly reported success or only minor trouble.
-All the issues have been addressed.
-Check the web pages for more info about the current developments.
-0.9.x is the tree for the 2.3/2.4 kernel.
-
-
-Acknowledgments
-----------------
-The driver has been started by making a copy of Kai Makisara's st driver.
-Most of the development has been done by Willem Riede. The presence of the
-userspace program osg (onstreamsg) from Terry Hardie has been rather
-helpful. The same holds for Gadi Oxman's ide-tape support for the DI-30.
-I did add some patches to those drivers as well and coordinated things a
-little bit.
-Note that most of them did mostly spend their spare time for the creation of
-this driver.
-The people from OnStream, especially Jack Bombeeck did support this project
-and always tried to answer HW or FW related questions. Furthermore, he
-pushed the FW developers to do the right things.
-SuSE did support this project by allowing me to work on it during my working
-time for them and by integrating the driver into their distro.
-
-More people did help by sending useful comments. Sorry to those who have
-been forgotten. Thanks to all the GNU/FSF and Linux developers who made this
-platform such an interesting, nice and stable platform.
-Thanks go to those who tested the drivers and did send useful reports. Your
-help is needed!
-
-
-Makedevs.sh
------------
-#!/bin/sh
-# Script to create OnStream SC-x0 device nodes (major 206)
-# Usage: Makedevs.sh [nos [path to dev]]
-# $Id: README.osst.kernel,v 1.4 2000/12/20 14:13:15 garloff Exp $
-major=206
-nrs=4
-dir=/dev
-test -z "$1" || nrs=$1
-test -z "$2" || dir=$2
-declare -i nr
-nr=0
-test -d $dir || mkdir -p $dir
-while test $nr -lt $nrs; do
- mknod $dir/osst$nr c $major $nr
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst$nr; chmod 660 $dir/osst$nr;
- mknod $dir/nosst$nr c $major $[nr+128]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst$nr; chmod 660 $dir/nosst$nr;
- mknod $dir/osst${nr}l c $major $[nr+32]
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst${nr}l; chmod 660 $dir/osst${nr}l;
- mknod $dir/nosst${nr}l c $major $[nr+160]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst${nr}l; chmod 660 $dir/nosst${nr}l;
- mknod $dir/osst${nr}m c $major $[nr+64]
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst${nr}m; chmod 660 $dir/osst${nr}m;
- mknod $dir/nosst${nr}m c $major $[nr+192]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst${nr}m; chmod 660 $dir/nosst${nr}m;
- mknod $dir/osst${nr}a c $major $[nr+96]
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst${nr}a; chmod 660 $dir/osst${nr}a;
- mknod $dir/nosst${nr}a c $major $[nr+224]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst${nr}a; chmod 660 $dir/nosst${nr}a;
- let nr+=1
-done