Lost /dev/rmt0

[PinkeyNBrain]

Scenario leading up to current issue:
- Old tape drive died, installing new.
- Used smit to remove unit. Power down. Replace. Power up. Used smit to re-define. Life is good for about a month.
- New tape drive slips it's take-up reel. Same cycle: smit remove, power down/up, ... smit can't find rmt0.

The only difference I can think of between the two instances is that after the first (re)install, I'd come across an article that stated

don't forget to remove the drive completely,
i.e. don't keep it in the database, otherwise it is kept
as a zombie entry, and the new drive would be named /dev/rmt1 rather
than /dev/rmt0.

OK - so on the second round I made sure I told smit to remove the drive - It appeared to work too well.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to get my drive definition back. I've looked through the smit.script file. It dates back to 1998 (when this unit was built) and the only thing I'm seeing that comes close to what I need is an entry that references "sm_inst {lots of params} devices.scsi.tape {more params}" (yes - I did a 'find' command to make sure I'd found *all* the smit.script files)

One of the {params} above includes /dev/cd0. I'm 3rd generation tech support for this unit and am finding out that those disks are no where to be found.

My goal is to get my tape backup system (or any backup system at this point) running again. Right now my disk space is severely limited so I have to be very careful trying to crank out a big tar command and exporting the results. Any ideas out there?

Running IBM RS6000 AIX oslevel 4.2.

 

[p5wizard]

OK,

list all tape drives:

[tt]lsdev -Cctape[/tt]

If you have a rmt1 device that wasn't there before all this started, remove that one:

[tt]rmdev -dl rmt1[/tt]

Then discover tape drive again:

[tt]cfgmgr[/tt]

See where this gets you...

report back with the output of all these commands if the issue is still not resolved.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[PinkeyNBrain]

# who am i
root        pts/6       Jul 24 05:20    (tre-TT1209-pc)
# cd /dev ; ls -la rm*
ls: 0653-341 The file rm* does not exist.
# lsdev -Cctape
# cfgmgr
# pwd
/dev
# ls -la rm*
ls: 0653-341 The file rm* does not exist.
#

 

[p5wizard]

What kind of tape drive is this?

As cfgmgr doesn't complain about missing driver for a device, I think you may have a SCSI cabling problem or possibly a SCSI address conflict. What other SCSI devices are there on the system?

[tt]lsdev -Csscsi[/tt]


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[PinkeyNBrain]

- Tape drive: IBM 7203-311 DLT
- Cable: Remove/reseat scsi cable - no pins found damaged
- Reran cfgmgr in case above cable reset did anything.

# cfgmgr
# cd /dev ; ls -la rm*
ls: 0653-341 The file rm* does not exist.
# lsdev -Csscsi
hdisk0 Available 00-06-B1-4,0 16 Bit SCSI Disk Drive
cd0    Available 00-07-A1-2,0 SCSI Multimedia CD-ROM Drive
hdisk1 Available 00-07-A1-3,0 16 Bit SCSI Disk Drive
hdisk2 Available 00-07-A1-4,0 16 Bit SCSI Disk Drive
hdisk3 Available 00-07-A1-5,0 16 Bit SCSI Disk Drive

More:

# lsparent -C -k scsi_scb && lsparent -C -k lsa && lsparent -C -k scsi
ascsi0 Available 00-05 Wide SCSI I/O Controller Adapter
ascsi1 Available 00-06 Wide SCSI I/O Controller Adapter
ascsi2 Available 00-07 Wide SCSI I/O Controller Adapter
vscsi0 Available 00-05-00 SCSI I/O Controller Protocol Device
vscsi1 Available 00-05-01 SCSI I/O Controller Protocol Device
vscsi2 Available 00-06-00 SCSI I/O Controller Protocol Device
vscsi3 Available 00-06-01 SCSI I/O Controller Protocol Device
vscsi4 Available 00-07-00 SCSI I/O Controller Protocol Device
vscsi5 Available 00-07-01 SCSI I/O Controller Protocol Device

# lsdev -P -c tape -F "type subclass description"
1200mb-c scsi 1.2 GB 1/4-Inch Tape Drive
150mb    scsi 150 MB 1/4-Inch Tape Drive
3490e    scsi 3490E Autoloading Tape Drive
4mm2gb   scsi 2.0 GB 4mm Tape Drive
4mm4gb   scsi 4.0 GB 4mm Tape Drive
525mb    scsi 525 MB 1/4-Inch Tape Drive
8mm      scsi 2.3 GB 8mm Tape Drive
8mm5gb   scsi 5.0 GB 8mm Tape Drive
8mm7gb   scsi 7.0 GB 8mm Tape Drive
9trk     scsi 1/2-inch 9-Track Tape Drive
ost      scsi Other SCSI Tape Drive
scsd     scsi SCSI Tape Drive
4mm2gb2  scsi 2.0 GB 4mm Tape Drive

Here is what smit displayed prior to removing the device:

                 Change / Show Characteristics of a Tape Drive

Type or select values in entry fields.
Press Enter AFTER making all desired changes.

                                                        [Entry Fields]
  Tape Drive                                          rmt0
  Tape Drive type                                     scsd
  Tape Drive interface                                scsi
  Description                                         Differential SCSI DLT >
  Status                                              Available
  Location                                            X0-05-01-1,0
  Parent adapter                                      vscsi1
  Connection address                                  1,0
  BLOCK size (0=variable length)                     [524288]                 +#
  Use DEVICE BUFFERS during writes                    yes                     +
  RETENSION on tape change or reset                   no                      +
  DENSITY setting #1                                  27                      +
  DENSITY setting #2                                  26                      +
  Use EXTENDED file marks                             yes                     +
  Use data COMPRESSION                                yes                     +

 

[psi07004]

Some thoughts...

If this is the last device on the scsi bus is it properly terminated. Some drives have intermal terminators that must have jumpers to "enable" them.

Have you looked at "errpt" to see if any type of errors are being generated when you run cfgmgr. If there are, it should give you a hint as to what it does not like.