On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Jim Sibley wrote: > John, > > "insmod tape390 tape=xxx,xxx" - only list the tapes you want to use are > specified. Obviously, putting them in the zipl.conf would lock them for the > duration of the IPL - not good for shared tapes.
Having loaded tape390 once, can you then load it again to get another tape? Having the mt command handle locking/releasing looks good to me, coupled with the driver spitting the dummy if you try to do anything to an unreserved tape except reserve it, or detach it. "mt attach" sounds good to me too. On systems where attach/detach don't apply, the operations should give no error or warning. I can imagine this functionality applying in other environments (such as vmware), and it seems to me ideal for the semantics to be the same. > However you look at it, the solution requires the person using the machine > to take overt acton to obtain the drive and it must be locked until he is > ready to release it. And it needs to take into account the fact that other > OS (non-linux) may also use the same drive. I'm not keen on the idea of it being done at driver-load time. > In this case, I think it behooves Linux to comply with the rules already in > place for shared tapes in an installation and follow the rules for the > device as defined in the hardware specs. When does it happen in OS/390? -- Cheers John. Join the "Linux Support by Small Businesses" list at http://mail.computerdatasafe.com.au/mailman/listinfo/lssb
