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| <h1><a class="mozTocH1" name="mozTocId697451"></a> Tools for storage |
| and SCSI<br> |
| </h1> |
| </center> |
| <a href="#intro"></a> |
| <ol id="mozToc"> |
| <!--mozToc h1 1 h2 2 h3 3 h4 4 h5 5 h6 6--> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId697451"> Tools for storage |
| and SCSI |
| </a> |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId746876"> Introduction</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId520511">blktool</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId212850"> ddrescue</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId264328"> devlabel</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId668788"> dt</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId231383">fio</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId851510">hdparm</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId777351">lsscsi</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId380766"> mapscsi</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId295637">plscsi</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId325127">safte-monitor</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId222172">scsiadd</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId550034"> scsidev</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId520455">scsi_id</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId673853">scsiinfo</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId108175"> scsimap</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId974127">scsirastools</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId348388"> scu</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId382975">sdparm</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId783871">SeaTools</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId847247">sg3_utils</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId705237">sg_utils</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId535090">smartmontools</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId143073"> smartsuite</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId53551">smp_utils</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId440267">spew</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId45065">testdisk</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId708282">udev</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#mozTocId728109">Conclusion</a></li> |
| </ol> |
| </li> |
| </ol> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId746876"></a> Introduction</h2> |
| The page is a resource for those looking for tools for storage devices |
| with an emphasis on SCSI devices. These tools are user space prorams |
| rather than kernel drivers. The entries are brief abstracts with links |
| to pages that have more information. The entries are in alphabetical |
| order.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId520511"></a>blktool</h2> |
| This is a utility for fetching and changing parameters in the linux |
| block susbsystem. It supports ATA and SCSI disks with some support for |
| cd/dvd drives. See this <a |
| href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel/">site</a> . For finer |
| grain control of SCSI devices (and SATA(PI) devices connected via a |
| SCSI |
| transport) see the <a href="#mozTocId382975">sdparm</a> utility below.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId212850"></a> ddrescue</h2> |
| This is another utility from Kurt Garloff <[email protected]> |
| for rescuing damaged media. It is a variant of dd that will continue |
| passed errors on the input file. It is applicable to any device that |
| can be read by dd (e.g. IDE and SCSI disks, cds and tapes). For more |
| information see: <a href="http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue">www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue</a><br> |
| <br> |
| There is also a GNU program of the same name that has a similar |
| function. See <a href="http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ddrescue/"> |
| http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ddrescue/</a> . John Gilmour has some |
| information on disk recovery utilities at <a |
| href="http://www.toad.com/gnu/sysadmin/">http://www.toad.com/gnu/sysadmin/</a> |
| .<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId264328"></a> devlabel</h2> |
| Devlabel is "a small userspace app which maps symlinks to underlying |
| disk names. It uses [INQUIRY VPD] Page83/Page80 data to track the |
| true locations of disks even if their hd/sd name changes and simply |
| updates the symlink to point to the right place." Sysfs support for the |
| lk 2.6 series and support for multi-path configurations is on the |
| author's "to do" list. See <a href="http://www.lerhaupt.com/linux.html">http://www.lerhaupt.com/linux.html</a> |
| . Probably better to use scsi_id/udev in the lk 2.6 series kernels<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId668788"></a> dt</h2> |
| The Data Test (DT) program is modelled on dd's syntax but <b>dt </b>can |
| do a lot more than sequential copies. It is a comprehensive data test |
| program for SCSI devices such as disks, tapes and cdrom/dvds. It is |
| available on several Unix platforms (and NT), and its source is |
| available (unlike its stable mate <b>scu</b> discussed earlier). |
| See <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" |
| href="http://www.scsifaq.org/RMiller_Tools/index.html"><span |
| style="font-family: monospace;"></span>www.scsifaq.org/RMiller_Tools/index.html</a> for |
| more details. dt is written by Robin |
| T. Miller <Robin.Miller at netapp dot com><br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId231383"></a>fio</h2> |
| This utility tests the performance of Linux/Unix block devices or file<span |
| style="font-family: monospace;"> </span>systems. <a |
| href="http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/">fio</a> is a tool that will spawn |
| a number of threads doing a<span style="font-family: monospace;"> </span>particular |
| type of io action as specified by the user in a defined job<span |
| style="font-family: monospace;"> </span>file. <a |
| href="http://brick.kernel.dk/snaps/">fio</a> supports various types of |
| io backends, such as regular sync<span style="font-family: monospace;"> |
| </span>io, linux aio, posix aio, and sg v3 io (SG_IO and queued |
| read/write).<span style="font-family: monospace;"> </span>fio can be |
| used for both performance testing, data/media verification,<span |
| style="font-family: monospace;"> </span>etc.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId851510"></a>hdparm</h2> |
| This utility gets and sets ATA drive parameters under Linux. Can also |
| get transport parameters for ATAPI devices. There is also limited |
| support for SCSI devices. See this <a |
| href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/hdparm/">site</a> . Overlaps in |
| functionality with blktool (see <a href="#mozTocId520511">above</a> ).<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId777351"></a>lsscsi</h2> |
| This utility lists SCSI devices (or hosts) that are present in the |
| linux kernel 2.6 series. It is a passive tools in the sense that it |
| "data mines" the linux sysfs file system rather than attempting to |
| query devices. See <a href="../scsi/lsscsi.html">lsscsi</a> .<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId380766"></a> mapscsi</h2> |
| Michael Clark <[email protected]> describes his utility |
| thus: "mapscsi is a small utility that creates a consistent mapping |
| to Linux scsi devices. mapscsi achieves this by creating symbolic |
| links to linux scsi disk devices after scanning all scsi disk devices, |
| finding out their host, channel, id, lun, pci location (if available), |
| Fibre Channel world wide node and port names, loop and port ids (with |
| qla2x00 v4.46.5 driver) vendor, product and serial number details and |
| using this information plus a mapping rules file containing device |
| templates to dynamically create link names". For more information see: <a |
| href="http://gort.metaparadigm.com/mapscsi">http://gort.metaparadigm.com/mapscsi</a> |
| . In the linux 2.6 series the scsi_id/udev pair is probably appropriate.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId295637"></a>plscsi</h2> |
| This utility allows arbitrary SCSI commands to be sent to a device. See |
| <a href="http://members.aol.com/plscsi">http://members.aol.com/plscsi</a> |
| . It is similar to FreeBSD's camcontrol command.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId325127"></a>safte-monitor</h2> |
| SAF-TE (SCSI Attached Fault-Tolerant Enclosure) is a SCSI command set |
| for monitoring and controlling enclosures and RAIDs. SAF-TE devices |
| report "processor" peripheral device type (0x3) in their INQUIRY |
| responses. More recent products tend to use SES (drafts at |
| http://www.t10.org ) which covers similar functionality. For a SAF-TE |
| monitoring tool for linux see: <a |
| href="http://oss.metaparadigm.com/safte-monitor">http://oss.metaparadigm.com/safte-monitor</a> |
| .<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId222172"></a>scsiadd</h2> |
| This utility permits a user to add and remove scsi devices from the |
| Linux scsi subsystem on the |
| fly. See scsiadd on this <a href="http://llg.cubic.org/tools/">page</a> |
| . |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId550034"></a> scsidev</h2> |
| Kurt Garloff <[email protected]> describes this utility thus: "This |
| program scans the SCSI bus and creates device nodes in /dev/scsi/, |
| which have a naming corresponding to their SCSI IDs and LUNs, just |
| like with devfs. (The devfs has no notion of host adapter IDs, |
| scsidev is better here.) Furthermore, the devices are inquired to |
| tell their names and serial numbers. Those can be compared with the |
| entries in a database /etc/scsi.alias and device nodes corresponding |
| to these entries are being built. So,this will even work if you change |
| the SCSI IDs of a device, where the devfs approach would fail". For |
| more information see: <a |
| href="http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/scsidev">www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/scsidev</a> |
| . He also has the useful <b>rescan-scsi-bus.sh</b> script at the same |
| location.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId520455"></a>scsi_id</h2> |
| This utility is used by various linux 2.6 series distributions together |
| udev to dynamically add and remove scsi device nodes. See <a |
| href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html">udev</a> |
| 's page.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId673853"></a>scsiinfo</h2> |
| Older package that includes the <span style="font-weight: bold;">scsiinfo</span> |
| and <span style="font-weight: bold;">scsiformat</span> utilities plus |
| tcl/tk GUI interfaces for those utilities. The last update of the <span |
| style="font-weight: bold;">scsiinfo</span> package was in 1997. The |
| function and syntax of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">scsiinfo</span> |
| utility have inspired <span style="font-weight: bold;">sginfo</span> |
| which now can be considered as a "drop in" replacement for <span |
| style="font-weight: bold;">scsiinfo</span> . Recent changes to SCSI |
| standards (e.g. extra and extended mode pages) are reflected in <span |
| style="font-weight: bold;">sginfo</span> . In a similar way the <span |
| style="font-weight: bold;">sg_format</span> utility can be thought of |
| as a modern replacement for the <span style="font-weight: bold;">scsiformat</span> |
| utility. <span style="font-weight: bold;">sdparm</span> can do most of |
| the things that scsiinfo and sginfo can.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId108175"></a> scsimap</h2> |
| Steve Cameron <[email protected]> has the following description |
| at his site: |
| <p>This is a utility to create and maintain symbolic links mapping a |
| predictable set of names to the rather unpredictable names used by |
| linux for disk devices. For example, you might map: <br> |
| <tt>/dev/mydisk1 -> /dev/sda1</tt> <br> |
| <tt>/dev/mydisk2 -> /dev/sdb1</tt> <br> |
| <tt>/dev/mydisk3 -> /dev/sdc1</tt> <br> |
| If you removed the disk corresponding to /dev/sdb1, then on reboot, |
| /dev/sdc1 will become /dev/sdb1, and /dev/sdc1 will be gone. and your |
| fstab will be wrong, etc. (Especially problematic on a SAN). <b>scsimap</b> |
| will maintain the mapping so that after the reboot, /dev/mydisk3 -> |
| will point to /dev/sdb1 and /dev/mydisk2 will be gone. scsimap also |
| handles later generation Compaq array controllers (those which use |
| the cciss driver.) </p> |
| <p>See: <a href="http://www.geocities.com/smcameron">www.geocities.com/smcameron</a> |
| .<br> |
| </p> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId974127"></a>scsirastools</h2> |
| "This project includes changes that enhance the Reliability, |
| Availability and Serviceability (RAS) of the drivers that are |
| commonly used in a Linux software RAID-1 configuration. Other |
| efforts have been made to enable various common hardware RAID |
| adapters and their drivers on Linux." See <a |
| href="http://scsirastools.sourceforge.net/">http://scsirastools.sourceforge.net</a> |
| . The package contains some low level scsi utilities including <b>sgdskfl</b> |
| to load disk firmware, <b>sgmode</b> to get and set mode pages, <b>sgdefects</b> |
| to read primary and grown defect lists and <b>sgdiag</b> to perform |
| format and other test functions. |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId348388"></a> scu</h2> |
| The SCSI Command Utility (SCU) implements various SCSI commands |
| necessary for normal maintenance and diagnostics of SCSI |
| peripherals. Some of its features include: formatting, scanning for |
| (and reassigning) bad blocks, downloading new firmware, executing |
| diagnostics and obtaining performance information. It is available on |
| several Unix platforms (and NT), however it is only currently available |
| in binary form. See <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" |
| href="http://www.scsifaq.org/RMiller_Tools/index.html"><span |
| style="font-family: monospace;"> </span>www.scsifaq.org/RMiller_Tools/index.html</a> |
| for more details. scu is written by Robin |
| T. Miller <Robin.Miller at netapp dot com> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId382975"></a>sdparm</h2> |
| This utility allows information from SCSI mode pages to be fetched and |
| potentially modified. <a href="sdparm.html">sdparm</a> also decodes |
| Vital Product Data pages. It was written for the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 |
| series and has been ported to FreeBSD and Tru64.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId783871"></a>SeaTools</h2> |
| SeaTools is a freely available (binary, not source) utility for disk |
| diagnostics from Seagate which is a disk manufacturer. It can be found |
| at <a href="http://www.seagate.com/">http://www.seagate.com</a> under |
| the support tab. They have both a command line and a graphical utility. |
| Some of the facilities will work on any SCSI disks while others |
| are Seagate specific. Self tests, mode page settings and formats (to |
| different block sizes) are amongst the facilities available. Other disk |
| vendors have similar tools.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId847247"></a>sg3_utils</h2> |
| This is a package of utilities that send SCSI commands and decodes the |
| response. It also includes slightly higher level utilities such as |
| sg_dd which permits a finer level of control over SCSI devices involved |
| in copies compared to the standard Unix dd command. <a |
| href="sg3_utils.html">sg3_utils</a> is written for the Linux 2.4 and |
| 2.6 |
| series and a large subset of its utilities have been ported to FreeBSD |
| and Tru64 .<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId705237"></a>sg_utils</h2> |
| This package is the precursor of sg3_utils. <a href="uu_index.html">sg_utils</a> |
| was written for the Linux 2.2 series with some support for the linux |
| 2.0 series.<br> |
| <br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId535090"></a>smartmontools</h2> |
| This project has taken over from the aforementioned |
| smartsuite which is currently not actively maintained. See <a |
| href="http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/">http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net</a> |
| . The author is a maintainer of the SCSI component of this project. |
| [The lead maintainer is Bruce Allen.]<br> |
| <p> </p> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH3" name="mozTocId143073"></a> smartsuite</h2> |
| This is a package that supports S.M.A.R.T. capabilities built into |
| modern IDE and SCSI-3 disks. Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting |
| Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) is described at <a |
| href="http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/infobrf/ibsmart.html">www.pc.ibm.com/us/infobrf/ibsmart.html</a>. |
| For smartsuite see <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartsuite">sourceforge.net/projects/smartsuite</a> |
| .<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId53551"></a>smp_utils</h2> |
| This is a package of utilities that sends Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) |
| Management Protocol (SMP) requests to a device (typically a SAS |
| expander) and decodes the response. See the <a href="smp_utils.html">smp_utils</a> |
| page.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId440267"></a>spew<span |
| style="font-weight: bold;"></span></h2> |
| This utility is used to measure I/O performance of character devices, |
| block devices, and regular files. It can also be used to generate high |
| I/O loads to stress systems while verifying data integrity. It is easy |
| to use and is flexible. No configuration files or complicated |
| client/server configurations are needed. Spew also generates its own |
| data patterns that are designed to make it easy to find and debug data |
| integrity problems. See <a href="http://spew.berlios.de">spew.berlios.de</a> |
| .<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId45065"></a>testdisk</h2> |
| For those occasion when the master boot record is overwritten, <a |
| href="http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk">testdisk</a> can find |
| many different types of partitions and help with data recovery.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId708282"></a>udev</h2> |
| <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html">udev</a> |
| provides a dynamic device directory containing only the files for |
| actually present devices in linux 2.6 series kernels. It creates or |
| removes device node files usually located in the /dev directory, |
| or it renames network interfaces.<br> |
| <h2><a class="mozTocH2" name="mozTocId728109"></a>Conclusion</h2> |
| If readers have corrections or suggested additions to this list of |
| tools, please contact the author.<br> |
| <br> |
| <a href="http://oss.metaparadigm.com/safte-monitor"></a><br> |
| <p>Return to <a href="index.html">main</a> page.<br> |
| </p> |
| <div style="text-align: center;"><a |
| href="mailto:dgilbert%20at%20interlog%20dot%20com">Douglas |
| Gilbert</a> can |
| be emailed at this address (also at dougg at torque dot net). <br> |
| </div> |
| <center> |
| <p>Last updated: 10th January 2007<br> |
| <br> |
| </p> |
| </center> |
| </body> |
| </html> |
