>> # If a SCSI tape has been detected, load the st module unconditionally
>> # since many SCSI tapes don't deal well with st being loaded and unloaded
><snip>. That's exactly what we have in our sysinit, and someone suggested
>that we comment that out...
Won't really help any. It's mostly just an "in case" load of the st
module. Other have commented it out as st support is built-into the kernel
and they got tired of seeing the error message.
>> >* kerneld is not running.
>> Why not? Unless you've got a monolithic kernel or have absolutely *no*
>> need to load any modules, it should be running. You can run
>> /usr/sbin/ntsysv to see if kerneld is started at boot time. (Or you can
>> use linuxconf or one of the GUI tools.)
>I, personally, didn't know anything about it until I started researching
>into this problem. I was under the assumption that it was one of those
>things that was default installed (at least the information I read led me
>to believe that). Doing a ps doesn't show it though... I'll look into
>this...
If st support is a module and kerneld is not running, that may be why the
tape drive only works once. The st module is loaded during boot, you use
the tape drive, then the module automatically unloads itself after a period
of inactivity. Then when you try to use the tape drive again the module
doesn't load because kerneld isn't running and you get the error messages.
(I *may* be talking through my hat here since I don't know if kerneld also
handles the "autoclean" part of module unloading or not...)
>> kernel and having it work. It gives you quite a sense of accomplishment.
>Heh, quite true, quite true. However, as this is not my machine, per se,
>but rather an ISP machine, the others around are rather hesitant on doing
>something that could go wrong, no matter how step by step it could be. Much
>less the fact that it's the webhosting machine, and there's a customer who
>gets 90,000 hits a week and would be on the phone in a second if his site
>wasn't up...
Do you have physical access to the machine? If so, worse case scenario is
you boot it with the new kernel and it fails miserably, so you have to
change a couple of things and reboot with the old kernel & modules.
Depending on the speed of the server and the amount of drive space, you're
probably looking at 10 - 15 minutes of downtime, although YMMV. I
understand about customer complaints during downtime though.
Heh, want to talk about being nervous... I once helped a friend install a
new kernel RPM & build a new custom kernel on a customer's server with
nothing but a couple of ssh sessions across the internet. Said server was
in a locked building, it was the weekend and neither one of us was
available to go to the site Monday if things went wrong. Granted I had
done such a thing before succesfully (after hosing things a little the
first time - but that's another story), but I at least had the comfort of
knowing I had keys to the building in question should I completely botch
things. Needless to say, he was more nervous than I. ;-)
>> Something you might try after the next reboot:
[snip]
>Can do. I'll attempt this either later today or tomorrow, hopefully...
Good. Maybe this'll buy us a clue. <grin>
>Would the SCSI tape support be listed in the /etc/conf.modules under an
>alias? We have the following:
No - unless you specifically pre-loaded it.
> alias scsi_hostadapter ncr53c8xx
Alias for the SCSI adapter - driver modularized
> alias eth0 eepro100
Alias for the network card - driver modularized
> alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
I *think* for parallel port IDE devices. You may not even need this.
> pre-install pcmcia_core /etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia start
PCMCIA card services. Probably don't need either on a server, unless for
some reason your server happens to be a laptop. ;-)
-Eric
Eric Sisler
Library Computer Technician
Westminster Public Library
Westminster, CO, USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux - don't fear the Penguin.
Want to know what we use Linux for?
Visit http://gromit.westminster.lib.co.us/linux
--
To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe"
as the Subject.
