SUMMARY: 4mm tape drive: device busy

From: Dave Cain (cain@syrres.com)
Date: Mon Apr 01 1996 - 09:38:44 CST


My original problem was as follows:

>>I have a problem with a new (self-terminating SCSI-3)
>>4mm 5Gbyte tape drive recently purchased for a Sparc 20.
>>
>>The tape drive works fine on system A: a Sparc 20 running
>>SunOS 4.1.4.
>>
>>I recently moved the tape drive to system B: a Sparc 10 running
>>SunOS 4.1.3. Upon rebooting system B, I can use the tape drive
>>without any problems. That is, I can tar and dump to it.
>>
>>The problem is system C: a Sun IPX running SunOS 4.1.3 that
>>cannot rdump to system B - the physical location of the tape
>>drive. The backup script looks something like this:
>> #!/bin/csh
>> setenv TAPE /dev/nrst8
>> setenv HOST systemb.syrres.com
>>
>> echo "Starting full backup of `hostname` on `date`"
>>
>> # Erase tape
>> echo "Erasing tape in `echo $TAPE`..."
>> rsh $HOST mt -f $TAPE erase
>>
>> echo "Dumping /dev/sd0a partition /..."
>> /etc/rdump 0ubdsf 96 54000 13000 $HOST\:$TAPE /dev/sd0a
>>
>>The mt command and the rdump command produce a "Device busy" error
>>with the result that the tape drive cannot be used again until
>>system B is rebooted. What's going on here?
>>

I had a stray /etc/rmt process. This process handles rdump
commands, and is supposed to exit when no longer needed. For
some reason it was still running and thus keeping the "device
busy". I therefore did a "ps -ax | grep rmt" and killed the
offending rmt process.

Thanks to all who helped. Praise be to the Sun Managers group!

***************************************************************
* Dave Cain Phone: (315)426-3279 *
* Syracuse Research Corp. Fax: (315)426-3362 *
* Merrill Lane cain@syrres.com *
* Syracuse, NY 13210 http://athena.syrres.com/~cain *
***************************************************************



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