NAME¶
sg_verify - invoke SCSI VERIFY command(s) on a block device
SYNOPSIS¶
sg_verify [
--16] [
--bpc=BPC] [
--count=COUNT]
[
--dpo] [
--ebytchk=BCH] [
--group=GN] [
--help] [
--in=IF] [
--lba=LBA] [
--ndo=NDO] [
--quiet] [
--readonly] [
--verbose] [
--version] [
--vrprotect=VRP]
DEVICE
DESCRIPTION¶
Sends one or more SCSI VERIFY (10 or 16) commands to
DEVICE. These SCSI
commands are defined in the SBC-2 (draft) standard at
http://www.t10.org and
SBC-3 drafts.
When
--ndo=NDO is not given then the verify starts at the logical block
address given by the
--lba=LBA option and continues for
--count=COUNT blocks. No more than
--bpc=BPC blocks are verified
by each VERIFY command so if necessary multiple VERIFY commands are sent.
Medium verification operations are performed by the
DEVICE (e.g.
assuming each block has additional EEC data, check this against the logical
block contents). No news is good news (i.e. if there are no verify errors
detected then no messages are sent to stderr and the Unix exit status is 0).
When
--ndo=NDO is given then the
--bpc=BPC option is ignored. A
single VERIFY command is issued and a comparison starts at the logical block
address given by the
--lba=LBA option and continues for
--count=COUNT blocks. The VERIFY command has an associated data-out
buffer that is
NDO bytes long. The contents of the data-out buffer are
obtained from the
FN file (if
--in=FN is given) or from stdin. A
comparison takes place between data-out buffer and the logical blocks on the
DEVICE. If the comparison is good then no messages are sent to stderr
and the Unix exit status is 0. If the comparison fails then a sense buffer
with a sense key of MISCOMPARE is returned; in this case the Unix exit status
will be 14. Messages will be sent to stderr associated with MISCOMPARE sense
buffer unless the
--quiet option is given.
In SBC-3 revision 34 the BYTCHK field in all SCSI VERIFY commands was expanded
from one to two bits. That required some changes in the options of this
utility, see the section below on OPTION CHANGES.
OPTIONS¶
Arguments to long options are mandatory for short options as well. The options
are arranged in alphabetical order based on the long option name.
- -S, --16
- uses a VERIFY(16) command (default VERIFY(10)). Even without this option,
using an --lba=LBA which is too large, will cause the utility to
issue a VERIFY(16) command.
- -b, --bpc=BPC
- this option is ignored if --ndo=NDO is given. Otherwise BPC
specifies the maximum number of blocks that will be verified by a single
SCSI VERIFY command. The default value is 128 blocks which equates to 64
KB for a disk with 512 byte blocks. If BPC is less than
COUNT then multiple SCSI VERIFY commands are sent to the
DEVICE. For the default VERIFY(10) BPC cannot exceed 0xffff
(65,535) while for VERIFY(16) BPC cannot exceed 0x7fffffff
(2,147,483,647). For recent block devices (disks) this value may be
constrained by the maximum transfer length field in the block limits VPD
page.
- -c, --count=COUNT
- where COUNT specifies the number of blocks to verify. The default
value is 1 . If COUNT is greater than BPC (or its default
value of 128) and NDO is not given, 0 or less then multiple SCSI
VERIFY commands are sent to the device. Otherwise COUNT becomes the
contents of the verification length field of the SCSI VERIFY command
issued. The sg_readcap utility can be used to find the maximum
number of blocks that a block device (e.g. a disk) has.
- -d, --dpo
- disable page out changes the cache retention priority of blocks read on
the device's cache to the lowest priority. This means that blocks read by
other commands are more likely to remain in the device's cache.
- -E, --ebytchk=BCH
- sets the BYTCHK field to BCH overriding the value (1) set by the
--ndo=NDO option. Values of 1, 2 or 3 are accepted for BCH
however sbc3r34 reserves the value 2. If this option is given then
--ndo=NDO must also be given. If BCH is 3 then COUNT
must be 1 and NDO should be the size of one logical block (plus the
size of some or all of the protection infomation if VRP is greater
than 0).
- -g, --group=GN
- where GN becomes the contents of the group number field in the SCSI
VERIFY(16) command. The default value for GN is 0. Note that this
option is ignored for the SCSI VERIFY(10) command.
- -h, --help
- output the usage message then exit.
- -i, --in=IF
- where IF is the name of a file from which NDO bytes will be
read and placed in the data-out buffer. This is only done when the
--ndo=NDO option is given. If this option is not given then stdin
is read. If IF is "-" then stdin is also used.
- -l, --lba=LBA
- where LBA specifies the logical block address of the first block to
start the verify operation. LBA is assumed to be decimal unless
prefixed by '0x' or a trailing 'h' (see below). The default value is 0
(i.e. the start of the device).
- -n, --ndo=NDO
- NDO is the number of bytes to obtain from the FN file (if
--in=FN is given) or from stdin. Those bytes are placed in the
data-out buffer associated with the SCSI VERIFY command and NDO is
placed in the verification length field in the cdb. The default value for
NDO is 0 and the maximum value is dependant on the OS. If the
--ebytchk=BCH option is not given then the BYTCHK field in the cdb
is set to 1.
- -q, --quiet
- suppress the sense buffer messages associated with a MISCOMPARE sense key
that would otherwise be sent to stderr. Still set the exit status to 14
which is the sense key value indicating a MISCOMPARE .
- -r, --readonly
- opens the DEVICE read-only rather than read-write which is the default.
The Linux sg driver needs read-write access for the SCSI VERIFY command
but other access methods may require read-only access.
- -v, --verbose
- increase the level of verbosity, (i.e. debug output).
- -V, --version
- print the version string and then exit.
- -P, --vrprotect=VRP
- where VRP is the value in the vrprotect field in the VERIFY command
cdb. It must be a value between 0 and 7 inclusive. The default value is
zero.
BYTCHK¶
BYTCHK is the name of a field (two bits wide) in the VERIFY(10) and VERIFY(16)
commands. When set to 1 or 3 (sbc3r34 reserves the value 2) it indicates that
associated with the SCSI VERIFY command, a data-out buffer will be sent for
the device (disk) to check. Using the
--ndo=NDO option sets the BYTCHK
field to 1 and
NDO is the number of bytes placed in the data-out
buffer. Those bytes are obtained from stdin or
IF (from the
--in=FN option). The
--ebytchk=BCH option may be used to
override the BYTCHK field value of 1 with
BCH.
The calculation of
NDO is left up to the user. Its value depends on the
logical block size (which can be found with the sg_readcap utility), the
COUNT and the
VRP values. If the
VRP is greater than 0
then each logical block will contain an extra 8 bytes (at least) of protection
information.
When the BYTCHK field is 0 then the verification process done by the device
(disk) is vendor specific. It typically involves checking each block on the
disk against its error correction codes (ECC) which is additional data also
held on the disk.
Many Operating Systems put limits on the maximum size of the data-out (and
data-in) buffer. For Linux at one time the limit was less than 1 MB but has
been increased somewhat.
OPTION CHANGES¶
Earlier versions of this utility had a
--bytchk=NDO option which set the
BYTCHK bit and set the cdb verification length field to
NDO. The
shorter form of that option was
-B NDO. For backward compatibility that
option is still present but not documented. In its place is the
--ndo=NDO whose shorter form of
-n NDO.
--ndo=NDO sets
the BYTCHK field to 1 unless that is overridden by the
--ebytchk=BCH.
NOTES¶
Various numeric arguments (e.g.
LBA) may include multiplicative suffixes
or be given in hexadecimal. See the "NUMERIC ARGUMENTS" section in
the
sg3_utils(8) man page.
The amount of error correction and the number of retries attempted before a
block is considered defective are controlled in part by the Verify Error
Recovery mode page. A note in the SBC-3 draft (rev 29 section 6.4.9 on the
Verify Error Recovery mode page) advises that to minimize the number of checks
(and hence have the most "sensitive" verify check) do the following
in that mode page: set the EER bit to 0, the PER bit to 1, the DTE bit to 1,
the DCR bit to 1, the verify retry count to 0 and the verify recovery time
limit to 0. Mode pages can be modified with the
sdparm utility.
The SCSI VERIFY(6) command defined in the SSC-2 standard and later (i.e. for
tape drive systems) is not supported by this utility.
EXIT STATUS¶
The exit status of sg_verify is 0 when it is successful. When
BCH is
other than 0 then a comparison takes place and if it fails then the exit
status is 14 which happens to be the sense key value of MISCOMPARE. Otherwise
see the EXIT STATUS section in the
sg3_utils(8) man page.
Earlier versions of this utility set an exit status of 98 when there was a
MISCOMPARE.
AUTHORS¶
Written by Douglas Gilbert.
REPORTING BUGS¶
Report bugs to <dgilbert at interlog dot com>.
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright © 2004-2013 Douglas Gilbert
This software is distributed under a FreeBSD license. There is NO warranty; not
even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
SEE ALSO¶
sdparm(sdparm), sg_modes(sg3_utils), sg_readcap(sg3_utils),
sg_inq(sg3_utils)