Have LTO tape library but how do I get started?

[Pete.S.]

I have the following:

• IBM TS3100 tape library
• IBM LTO-7 HH SAS drive (inside the tape library)
• Dell H200E SAS card (12DNW)
• SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 cable (EMC Amphenol 038-003-786)
• a couple of FUJI LTO-7 tapes

I want to run backups using the shell in linux (debian).

I'm experienced with linux and server hardware in general but I have never worked with tape and I don't know how to get started.
I don't even know what I need to do to get the SAS controller up and running. Do I need to change setting on the controller or the tape library to get them to communicate?

Where do I start?

 

[DavidWJohnston]

I primarily run LTO5 individual drives on FC in Windows - But when I first got the drives I experimented with Linux.

Unfortunately I can't help with the library/robot loader part at all, but a quick google revealed this video:

To get the drive itself to work, hopefully this will help:

Since I run FC, I hot-plug them - SAS might work better if you boot with the drive powered on - You should see the card's BIOS/UEFI screen during the POST process, and it should find the drive. The kernel driver for the SAS controller should already be present. Then with the right packages Linux should be able to access it. (See guide below)

I followed this guide with some adjustments for FC: https://www.linuxquestions.org/ques...8/lto-tape-drive-linux-experience-4175620090/

I also tried out LTFS in Linux which is supposed to present the tape as a filesystem. I tried this very briefly but ran into a snag and abandoned it without a lot of effort: GitHub - LinearTapeFileSystem/ltfs: Reference implementation of the LTFS format Spec for stand alone tape drive

After messing with Linux for a while I decided to try Windows, and that's what I stuck with. I run Retrospect Desktop ($100) and LTFS. The HP tape tools also has a nice GUI for testing and formatting tapes - Not sure if that's in Linux.

You'll probably do better than me in Linux, with some persistence it should be OK, but not a drag-drop experience like Windows. I'd love to have LTO7, that sounds amazing.

 

[Pete.S.]

To get the drive itself to work, hopefully this will help:

Since I run FC, I hot-plug them - SAS might work better if you boot with the drive powered on - You should see the card's BIOS/UEFI screen during the POST process, and it should find the drive. The kernel driver for the SAS controller should already be present. Then with the right packages Linux should be able to access it. (See guide below)

I followed this guide with some adjustments for FC: https://www.linuxquestions.org/ques...8/lto-tape-drive-linux-experience-4175620090/

Thanks David, that's great. Sounds like this is the first thing I should do.

 

[bobcat310]

Hello,
Just FYI, there are a few IBM docs available to set up and use TS3100 and LTO drives.

• IBM TS3100 Tape Library and TS3200 Tape Library - Setup, Operator, and Service Guide
  • IBM TS3100 Tape Library and TS3200 Tape Library Setup, Operator, and Service Guide
• IBM Tape Device Drivers - User's Guide
  • IBM Tape Device Drivers Installation and User's Guide
• Independent Software Vendor (ISV) matrix for IBM TotalStorage 3592 tape drives and LTO
  • https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/ORLZ7EMG

Note that the equipment listed does not seem to appear in the SSIC webpage, therefore things may not work or work differently from those docs.

IBM System Storage Interoperation Center (SSIC)

www-50.ibm.com

Kind regards,

 

[Stephan]

Get Linux command line ITDT tool from IBM and use its diagnostics functions to verify everything works. There is also a GUI version. Write a full tape of incompressible data just to see if hardware is good. Will take a couple of hours.

After that, try Bareos. GitHub - bareos/bareos: Main repository with the code for the libraries and daemons Here are some screenshots https://seitics.de/files/bareos/screenshots/ and further up are .conf files to give you an idea what configuration looks like. You will need mtx and this Autochanger & Tape drive Support — Bareos Documentation documentation

 

[Pete.S.]

Get Linux command line ITDT tool from IBM and use its diagnostics functions to verify everything works. There is also a GUI version. Write a full tape of incompressible data just to see if hardware is good. Will take a couple of hours.

After that, try Bareos. GitHub - bareos/bareos: Main repository with the code for the libraries and daemons Here are some screenshots https://seitics.de/files/bareos/screenshots/ and further up are .conf files to give you an idea what configuration looks like. You will need mtx and this Autochanger & Tape drive Support — Bareos Documentation documentation

Thanks. I'm going to take a look at ITDT. I saw it in a video on how to troubleshoot tape drives as well.

But I'll probably skip bareos because I don't want any backup software to manage the backups. I'm just going to use pure shell scripts.

I was initially thinking about using LTFS but there are no packages for it on debian which makes it not worth it. So I think I need tar for handling the tape drive and mtx to handle the tape library.