iSCSI Virtual Tape Library

iSCSI Tape is an emulation of a complete tape library. Tape drives, tapes, robot and storage are all emulated on a Linux server and presented on iSCSI as the real thing. The tapes are files on disk. The rest are control files that describe the library and the drives.

iSCSI Tape is available  from SourceForge

sourceforge.net/projects/iscsitape/

It has been developed from the iSCSI Enterprise Project and uses much of their code.

Initially, the documentation for the project will only be available on this site.

Installation

Version 0.4.17.1 has been installed and tested only on Fedora Core 10. Version 0.4.17.2 should install on both FC10 and FC11.

Fedora System Build

Build

cd /usr/local

Copy the iscsitarget-0.4.17.2-tape.tar.gz into this directory and unpack

tar -xvzf iscsitarget-0.4.17.2-tape.tar.gz
ln -s iscsitarget-0.4.17.2-tape tape
cd tape

make clean
make
make install

Make install will copy the iscsi_trgt_tape.ko module into /lib/modules/2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i686.PAE/kernel/iscsi/
It will also run depmod so the module can be loaded and unloaded.

Tape files

mkdir /iscsi-files
cd /iscsi-files
Copy the downloaded files tape.tar and changer.tar into this directory and unpack them. The files in tape.tar create a generic tape drive and the files in changer.tar create a generic tape library (or changer).
The files in the tape directory are the responces to some of the scsi commands and they create the identity of the tape drive(s). It is possible to create different makes andeven emulate known tape drives. I can't supply these because of copyright issues but I have emulated several well known tape drives.
The files in the changer directory fall into two types. Some are the responces to scsi commands, the rest are the contents of the tape library. By changing some of these files it is possible to change the size of the tape library and the number of tape drives in the library.

Creating new tapes

You will also need to create some tapes. The tapes are named using their volume serial number. A 6 character alpha-numberic name. To create a new tape use touch
touch 000001
The supplied changer files create a library for 16 tapes. You need to create tapes 000000 to 000015. A header will be added to the tape file the first time it is opened.

Configuration File

iSCSI tape requires a configuration file - iettd.conf . Edit this file, /etc/iettd.conf, to your required configuration. The supplied configuration files allow up to 8 tape drives.

Target iqn.2006-03.xxxxx:storage.tape.1
Lun 0 Make=tape,Path=/iscsi-files/,Serial=000001
Lun 1 Make=tape,Path=/iscsi-files/,Serial=000002
Lun 2 Make=changer,Path=/iscsi-files/,Serial=100001

Notes -
1) Change xxxxx in the Target line to the Hostname.
2) Give the devices unique serial numbers.
3) Only one changer per Target and it must be last in the list.
4) Path= points to the tape and configuration files.
5) Make= is the name of the folder containing the configuration files.
6) Path= must be the same for all devices in a Target and unique for each Target.

Starting and stopping

cd /usr/local/tape

To start
./iscsi-restart

To stop
./iscsi-stop

Messages are written to /var/log/messages. There are still quite a few diagnostics being written.

Windows

To use your VTL from windows

VTL Contents

The supplied VTL configuration

Development and Support

Problems and solutions.

Please contact me with suggestions and questions.

Links

• Interests and links
• Home page
• iSCSI Enterprise Target