HOWTO: Install Certance Travan ATAPI/IDE tape unit in FC3

Here is how to install the popular Certance Travan ATAPI/IDE tape unit in FC3.

1. Login as the root user

2. Find the tape unit's device

$ dmesg | grep TAPE
hdb: Seagate STT20000A, ATAPI TAPE drive

You can see mine is hdb (yours might be different)

3. Run the following command to load the ide-scsi module (ide-tape is depreciated in FC3)

$ modprobe ide-scsi

4. The device should now be available. You can check it with

$cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: Seagate Model: STT20000A Rev: 8A51
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02

I have no other SCSI devices installed, however if you did they would be listed here as well.

5. Check that the device is created in /dev. The device will be named /dev/stX where X is the tape unit number (zero for first unit i.e. /dev/st0, second unit /dev/st1, and so on). In FC3 these devices are created dynamically by udev.

$ ls -l /dev/st0
crw-rw---- 1 root disk 9, 0 Nov 11 19:37 /dev/st0

6. The device is ready to be used, try

$ mt -f /dev/st0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (50000):
DR_OPEN IM_REP_EN

Note the unit has no tape in it. With a tape loaded the unit will read something like:

SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 512 bytes. Density code 0x47 (TR-5).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN

7. To have the tape unit loaded automatically when you restart, edit /etc/grub.conf file and pass the following kernel parameter:

change (the actual version numbers might be different if you've updated the kernel):

title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img

to:

title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667-tape)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ hdb=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img

title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img

The device used (e.g. hdb) is the one obtained in step 2. Grub will present two options upon restart. If you experience problems select the non-tape version and correct the configuration file.

The tape unit can now be used as with:

tar -cf /dev/st0 /home

This will archive your /home directory to tape. You can use the /dev/nst0 device if you don't want the tape to automatically rewind after the command has completed execution.

Enjoy:-)

Reference

- Certance Travan TCO Overview
- Certance Travan Tape Drives
- CT 40 - 40GB, Internal, ATAPI (Model STT3401A-SST) ( Amazon.com )
- CT 20 - 20GB, Internal, ATAPI (Model STT220000A-SST) ( Amazon.com )
- Linux: Tape backup for a home network