From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: James Bottomley Subject: Re: SG_IO problem on tape devices Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:15:59 -0500 Message-ID: <1212524159.3329.18.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1212479982.5079.58.camel@pcitfio23.cern.ch> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from accolon.hansenpartnership.com ([76.243.235.52]:33371 "EHLO accolon.hansenpartnership.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752712AbYFCUQE (ORCPT ); Tue, 3 Jun 2008 16:16:04 -0400 In-Reply-To: <1212479982.5079.58.camel@pcitfio23.cern.ch> Sender: linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org To: Arne Wiebalck Cc: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 09:59 +0200, Arne Wiebalck wrote: > Hi all, > > I got a problem using the SG_IO ioctl with our tape drives. > In order to examine errors on our drives in more detail, I > would like to make the sense bytes available to the > application using the REQUEST_SENSE command. > > However, there's a discrepancy between the kernel output in > /var/log/messages and what I see using SG_IO within my > application: while the kernel sees > > kernel: st0: Error with sense data: scsi1 : destination target 0, lun 0 > kernel: command = Space 01 00 0d d5 00 > kernel: Info fld=0x1, Current st0: sense key Medium Error > kernel: Additional sense: Read retries exhausted > kernel: Raw sense data:0xf0 0x00 0x03 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x01 0x12 0x00 0x00 > 0x00 0x00 0x11 0x01 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x37 0xf7 0x10 0x01 0x00 0x00 > 0xf7 0x37 > > (which is realistic) the ioctl reports something like > > 70 00 00 00 00 00 00 12 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 > 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 02 > > (since the first bit is not set, the sense bytes are not even valid, > as far as I understand). > > So, could it be that the sense bytes are already cleared when I request > them? They cleared/set by the next SCSI cmd, I assume? But shouldn't > they be valid even then? > > I also tried the sg3-utils to query the drive's sense bytes, and they > report (almost) the same sense bytes as SG_IO inside my application > does. Sending an INQUIRY cmd using sg3_utils works fine, btw. > > Maybe that's all a plain usage error, so please find the code I use > below. > > Anything obvious I am doing wrong here? All comments appreciated. Yes: SCSI automatically requests sense in response to a check condition. So, the sense should be attached to the SG_IO command that receives the error. You can't do an additional request sense for it because the sense has already been cleared by the automatic request sense the mid-layer did. Does the sense data really not get returned by the SG_IO command that actually encounters the check condition return? James