Quantum LTO 1U, Reference

Installing a DLT, SDLT, VS, LTO, or DAT Tape Drive Into a Linux Operating System

6464215-01, Rev B

January 2006

stinit and stinit.def

18

stinit and stinit.def

0

stinit

 automatically initializes SCSI tape drive modes at system startup or 

reboot by sending 

ioctl

 commands to the drive. The commands are defined in 

the 

stinit.def

 definitions

text file. The text file is indexed using the inquiry data 

returned by the drive (manufacturer, device, and revision).

See 

Tape Device 

and Parameter Definitions

 for more information about the 

stinit.def

 file. 

After a new installation of the Linux operating system or a new installation of 

mt-st

, an 

stinit.def 

file may not exist. You can create an 

stinit.def

 file by using  the 

following sample file:

/usr/share/doc/mt-st-<version>/stinit.def.examples  

If you modify 

stinit.def,

 you can re-initialize the SCSI tape drive modes by 

rebooting the server or executing the following command:  

# stinit or # stinit -f <pathname>/stinit.def

where 

pathname

 is the path where 

stinit.def

 file is stored.

By default, 

stinit

 searches your present working directory to find the 

stinit.def 

file. If 

stinit

 cannot find 

stinit.def

 in the working directory, it searches 

/etc/

stinit.def

.   

For more information on 

stinit

, see the 

stinit(8) man page

. 

Tape Device and 
Parameter Definitions

0

The 

stinit.def 

file contains definitions of tape devices and their corresponding 

initialization parameters. 
Some of the parameter conventions are listed in the following table:

The following example shows a single entry of a tape device in the 

stinit.def

file: 

# The XY dat
manufacturer=XY-COMPANY model = "UVW DRIVE" {
scsi2logical=1 # Common definitions for all modes
can-bsr can-partitions auto-lock
# Definition of modes

Item

Definition

 { }

Parameter definitions are delimited by { }.

name = 

value

Definitions consist of pairs where 

name = 

value

. The 

value

is either a numeric parameter, a string not containing 

blanks, or a string enclosed within quotation marks.  
If  

= value

 is omitted, a value of “1” is assigned.  

#

If the 

# 

character appears

in an input line, 

stinit

 deletes 

from the buffer everything following the 

# 

character up 

to the next carriage return. This enables you to make 

comments in the 

stinit.def 

file.