Can't query tape robot status

[yakatz]

I am trying to configure PBS with my older Qualstar TLS-58132 library (LTO-5).
The tape drives seem to be working fine, but there seem to be issues with the robot itself.

root@robot00:/holding# proxmox-tape changer list
┌────────┬─────────────────────────────────┬──────────┬───────────┬────────────┐
│ name   │ path                            │ vendor   │ model     │ serial     │
╞════════╪═════════════════════════════════╪══════════╪═══════════╪════════════╡
│ robot0 │ /dev/tape/by-id/scsi-XXXXXXXXXX │ QUALSTAR │ TLS-58132 │ XXXXXXXXXX │
└────────┴─────────────────────────────────┴──────────┴───────────┴────────────┘
root@robot00:/holding# proxmox-tape changer status robot0
Error: error reading element status: read element status (B8h) failed: Illegal Request, Additional sense: Invalid field in cdb
root@robot00:/holding#

I found one other place in the forums that mentions this error, but it does not appear to be connected since they were able to use pmtx to query the status, but I get the same error if I try that. Any thoughts?

 

[dcsapak]

what is your version? (proxmox-backup-manager versions --verbose)

 

[yakatz]

root@robot00:~# proxmox-backup-manager versions --verbose
proxmox-backup                3.0.1        running kernel: 6.2.16-3-pve
proxmox-backup-server         3.0.2-1      running version: 3.0.2
pve-kernel-6.2                8.0.5
proxmox-kernel-helper         8.0.3
proxmox-kernel-6.2.16-6-pve   6.2.16-7
proxmox-kernel-6.2            6.2.16-7
pve-kernel-6.2.16-3-pve       6.2.16-3
ifupdown2                     3.2.0-1+pmx3
libjs-extjs                   7.0.0-3
proxmox-backup-docs           3.0.2-1
proxmox-backup-client         3.0.2-1
proxmox-mail-forward          0.2.0
proxmox-mini-journalreader    1.4.0
proxmox-offline-mirror-helper unknown
proxmox-widget-toolkit        4.0.6
pve-xtermjs                   4.16.0-3
smartmontools                 7.3-pve1
zfsutils-linux                2.1.12-pve1
root@robot00:~#

 

[dcsapak]

mhmm is there any scsi reference for that changer available as documentation (i could not find one) the commands we do work for all libraries we encountered so far.

also the output of strace would be interesting (you probably have to install it first with 'apt install strace')

strace -fyy pmtx status --changer robot0

 

[yakatz]

Output from strace is too big to put in the forum post, so I put it here: https://gist.github.com/yakatz/ae6eb1a5aeea85feb1617c8cd88f9de1

 

[dcsapak]

ok, according to http://www.qualstar-resources.com/qsr-manuals/TLS-6000-8000-SCSI-Interface-Manual.pdf
the library does not support the DVCID bit (which returns vendor/serial info about the drives from the library)

i sent a patch to make that optional: https://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pbs-devel/2023-August/006421.html
but no promises when we ship a version with that patch (must first be reviewed, applied, etc.)

you could try to compile the project yourself, but that is not trivial