estape
estape is the new tape driver in HP-UX 11i v3.
The device special files (referred to as DSFs) for the estape driver have the following naming convention:
/dev/rtape/tape#_BEST[n][b]
There are four such files (referred to as persistent DSFs)
corresponding to each of the four different permutations of the n and b options.
These are claimed by the estape driver. See the intro(7) manpage for more details
on persistent device special file names.
The minor number of the device ID (dev_t) of persistent tape device special files no longer encode
the tape device options (such as, density, style of access and so
on). The files /dev/rtape/* refer to specific raw tape drives controlled by the estape driver. The major number of these device special files
is dynamically allocated and the minor number does not encode any
device specific information. Hence the macros given below, that
are defined in <sys/mtio.h> header file do not interpret the options correctly for
persistent (agile) DSFs. The macros are:
M_DFLT_DENSITY_PUT (dev, density)
These macros continue to work on the legacy DSFs as before.
Please refer to mt(7) manpage for methods to decode
tape device file options from persistent device files.
The files /dev/rmt/* continue to refer to specific raw tape drives controlled
by the legacy stape driver, and the behavior of each given unit
is specified in the major and minor numbers of the DSF as before.
The legacy driver and DSFs are deprecated and will be removed in
a future version of HP-UX.
estape by default enables support for some tape devices. This
includes the BEST density and compression support for the drives.
The drives that have these settings can be listed using the scsimgr ddr_list command. Please refer to scsimgr(1M) manpage for details. If
a drive’s VID/PID is enlisted in scsimgr ddr_list it means that the driver will choose optimal density
and compression for these drives. It does not, however, entail support
for these drives. For drives qualified and supported on HP-UX 11i
v3 please refer to the support matrix.
Some old drives (listed below), do not have the support in
the estape driver. However, these drives may work as a “Generic
Tape Drive” with performance impacts. No guarantee is made
for proper working of these drives.
The removed devices include:
The HP HP354* family of DDS
drives
The HP C15* family of DDS
drives
The EXABYTE EXB* family of
8mm drives
The ARCHIVE VIPER* family
of QIC drives
Quantum DLT2* and DLT4* families
of DLT drives
The tunables st_large_recs and st_fail_overruns have been removed in the HP-UX 11i v3 for estape driver.
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