NAME¶
scsiinfo - query information from a scsi device
SYNOPSIS¶
scsiinfo [-options...] [device]
DESCRIPTION¶
scsiinfo queries information from an scsi target. This means generally
using the
INQUIRY scsi command or reading out SCSI-II mode pages (the
number of the mode pages and corresponding sections of the SCSI-II sections is
given below). It allows also to modify some of these settings on the scsi
device (if it supports it).
Except for the
-v and
-l options you must specify exactly one scsi
device to work on. You may specify any linux scsi device disk, tape, cdrom,
generic scsi.
Some scsi devices (typically non removable disks) will allow to store your
modifications in some non volatile memory. Some of these settings (for example
those dealing with the layout of logical blocks and sectors set aside as
replacements for erroneous blocks) might render the disk unusable until a low
level format.
OPTIONS¶
- -i
- display all information from the INQUIRY scsi command.
- -s
- displays the unit serial number using the INQUIRY scsi
command.
- -d
- display factory and grown defect lists (typically for disks only).
It is currently only possible to return defect information up to 4096 bytes.
Longer defect lists are truncated. See the BUGS section.
- -f arg
- specify the format in which to return the defect information. The target
may decide to fail reporting defect information in unsupported formats or
decide to return data in a different format. scsiinfo supports all
SCSI-II specified defect formats:
- -Flogical
- logical blocks. Use of this format is discouraged as the assignment of
logical blocks varies according to format parameters and status of the
defect list, hence is no unique specification of defects.
- -Fphysical
- physical blocks. Return defect as cylinder, head, physical sector
triples.
- -Findex
- defect bytes from index. Return defect as cylinder, head, byte offset from
index. The SCSI-II standard is not very clear on this to me. It is unclear
to me if there is a single bad byte, this offset away from the index hole
on the disk (this is only figuratively, there won't be a hole as used to
be on 5 1/4" floppy disks), or if all bytes from the index to this
position are considered to be bad.
SCSI-II mode pages¶
- -C
- displays information from Control Mode Page. (Page 0Ah, section
7.3.3.1)
- -D
- displays information from Disconnect-Reconnect Page. (Page 02h,
section 7.3.3.2)
- -p
- displays information from Peripheral Device Page. (Page 09h,
section 7.3.3.3)
- -c
- displays information from Caching Page. (Page 08h, section
8.3.3.1)
- -f
- displays information from Format Device Page. (Page 03h, section
8.3.3.3)
- -n
- displays information from Notch and Partition Page. (Page 0Ch,
section 8.3.3.5)
A huge scsi disk might be divided into several notches. These are regions of
logical blocks or cylinders on the disk. Each such notch might have
different values for the other mode pages.
Typically a modern disk will have several notches and have more sectors per
track on the inner tracks/notches on the disk and more sectors per track
on the outer (longer) tracks for optimal capacity. Also different amounts
of reserved backup sectors may be available in the notches depending on
their capacity.
- -e
- displays information from Error Recovery page. (Page 01h, section
8.3.3.6)
- -g
- displays information from Rigid Disk Drive Geometry Page. (Page
04h, section 8.3.3.7)
- -V
- displays information from Verify Error Recovery Page. (Page 07h,
section 8.3.3.8)
Select mode page set¶
By default the current settings are queried from the devices. You can however
specify one of these:
- -M
- displays manufacturer defaults instead of current values.
- -S
- displays defaults saved in NVRAM instead of current values.
- -m
- displays modifiable fields instead of current values (All bits set in
modifiable fields).
Miscellaneous¶
- -v
- Show scsiinfo version.
- -vv
- Dump sense buffer in case of error.
- -a
- All of the above (expect listing defects).
- -l
- List scsi devices known to the system.
- -L
- List mode pages pages supported by this scsiinfo version and target
(notched pages and active notch are also returned).
- -X
- displays output suitable for the X-based interface. Instead of nice
explanations, just the bare values are written to stdout.
- -R
- Replace parameters. Use with -X and specify the values to set on
the command line in the order and format as -X uses to report them.
(Expert use only, definitely use the Tcl/Tk interface
scsi-config(8)tomodifysettings.)
Use this in conjunction with -S to modify the NVRAM settings.
-X and
-R can be used only with one of the display page options.
-m and
-M cannot be used with
-R.
You may use
-M,
-S with
-L though it will make no
difference. As a special goodie when using
-LXR then a
/bin/sh
script is written to stdout that will restore the current settings of the
target when executed. You can use one of
-M,
-S with
-LXR
to save the corresponding values.
BUGS¶
Restrictions of the
SCSI_IOCTL_SEND_COMMAND ioctl(2) call make it
impossible to send or receive more than 4096 bytes of arguments. This could be
avoided by using the proper generic scsi device
/dev/sg* instead, at
least where the kernel is compiled to support it. Most of the time this is not
needed though and thus I'm myself to lazy to do it. It will basically just
truncate the vendor specified primary defect lists. Thus I'm too lazy to fix
it.
FILES¶
/dev/sd*
/dev/sg*
/dev/scd*
/dev/st*
/dev/nst*
/dev/rmt*
/dev/nrmt*
SEE ALSO¶
scsi-config(8),
scsiformat(8),
tk_scsiformat(8),
fdisk(8),
sd(4),
Draft proposed
American National Standard
for information systems
SMALL COMPUTER SYSTEM INTERFACE - 2
(SCSI-2)
MARCH 9, 1990
AUTHORS¶
Eric Youngdale.
Michael Weller <eowmob@exp-math.uni-essen.de>, Versions 1.5 &
1.7