sg3_utils 1.22 review
Downloadsg3_utils package contains utilities that send SCSI commands to Linux devices
|
|
sg3_utils package contains utilities that send SCSI commands to Linux devices. As well as devices on SCSI transports (e.g. Fibre channel and the SCSI parallel interface) many other devices use SCSI command sets.
Examples are ATAPI cd/dvd drives and SATA disks (typically via a translation layer or bridge device). SCSI command sets are divided into what are called "primary" commands (e.g. SPC-3) and device class specific sets (e.g. SBC-2 for disks and MMC-4 for cd/dvd devices). SCSI command sets and transports definitions can be found at www.t10.org .
The sg3_utils package targets the linux kernel 2.4 and 2.6 series and is still under active development. An earlier package called sg_utils targeted the linux kernel 2.2 series with some support for the 2.0 series. See an earlier version of this web page for further information about sg_utils. This document describes version 1.18 of sg3_utils .
In the linux kernel 2.4 series most these utilities must be used with a SCSI generic (sg) driver device name (e.g. /dev/sg0). In the lk 2.6 series almost all of these utilities can be used with the primary device names as well (e.g. /dev/sda, /dev/sdc0, /dev/st0 and /dev/hdd (if it is an ATAPI device)).
The SCSI generic (sg) interface still represents a cleaner interface than the primary device names since the drivers behind primary device names have their own policies, may interfere with error processing and in some cases run their own state machines.
What's New in This Release:
Improved SAS/SATA support, including a new sg_sat_identify utility to pass an ATA IDENTIFY (PACKET) DEVICE command through an SAT layer.
This release tracks various changes in the www.t10.org drafts.
A Windows port has been added.
sg3_utils 1.22 search tags