CHIO(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual CHIO(1)
NAME
chio - medium changer control utility
SYNOPSIS
chio [-f changer] command [-<flags>] arg1 arg2 [arg3 [...]]
DESCRIPTION
The chio utility is used to control the operation of medium changers,
such as those found in tape and optical disk jukeboxes.
The options are as follows:
-f changer
Use the device changer rather than the default device /dev/ch0.
A medium changer apparatus is made up of elements. There are five
element types: picker (medium transport), slot (storage), portal
(import/export), drive (data transfer), and voltag (select by volume
identifier). The voltag pseudo-element type allows the selection of
tapes by their volume tag (typically a barcode on the tape).
In this command description, the shorthand ET will be used to represent
an element type, and EU will be used to represent an element unit. For
example, to represent the first robotic arm in the changer, the ET would
be "picker" and the EU would be "0".
SUPPORTED COMMANDS
move <from ET> <from EU> <to ET> <to EU> [inv]
Move the media unit from <from ET/EU> to <to ET/EU>. If the
optional modifier inv is specified, the media unit will be
inverted before insertion.
exchange <src ET> <src EU> <dst1 ET> <dst1 EU> [<dst2 ET> <dst2 ET>]
[inv1] [inv2]
Perform a media unit exchange operation. The media unit in <src
ET/EU> is moved to <dst1 ET/EU> and the media unit previously in
<dst1 ET/EU> is moved to <dst2 ET/EU>. In the case of a simple
exchange, <dst2 ET/EU> is omitted and the values <src ET/EU> are
used in their place. The optional modifiers inv1 and inv2
specify whether the media units are to be inverted before
insertion into <dst1 ET/EU> and <dst2 ET/EU> respectively.
Note that not all medium changers support the exchange operation;
the changer must have multiple free pickers or emulate multiple
free pickers with transient storage.
return <from ET> <from EU>
Return the media unit to its source element. This command will
query the status of the specified media unit, and will move it to
the element specified in its source attribute. This is a
convenient way to return media from a drive or portal to its
previous element in the changer.
position <to ET> <to EU> [inv]
Position the picker in front of the element described by <to
ET/EU>. If the optional modifier inv is specified, the media
unit will be inverted before insertion.
Note that not all changers behave as expected when issued this
command.
params Report the number of slots, drives, pickers, and portals in the
changer, and which picker unit the changer is currently
configured to use.
getpicker
Report which picker unit the changer is currently configured to
use.
setpicker <unit>
Configure the changer to use picker <unit>.
ielem [<timeout>]
Perform an INITIALIZE ELEMENT STATUS operation on the changer.
The optional <timeout> parameter may be given to specify a
timeout in seconds for the operations. This may be used if the
operation takes unusually long because of buggy firmware or the
like.
voltag [-fca] <ET> <EU> [<label>] [<serial>]
Change volume tag for an element in the media changer. This
command is only supported by few media changers. If it is not
supported by a device, using this command will usually result in
an "Invalid Field in CDB" error message on the console.
If the -c flag is specified, the volume tag of the specified
element is cleared. If the -f flag is specified, the volume tag
is superseded with the specified volume tag even if a volume tag
is already defined for the element. It is an error to not
specify the -f flag when trying to set a label for an element
which already has volume tag information defined.
The command works with the primary volume tag or, if the -a flag
is given, with the alternate volume tag.
status [-vVsSbIa] [<type>]
Report the status of all elements in the changer. If <type> is
specified, report the status of all elements of type <type>.
-v Print the primary volume tag for each loaded medium, if any. The
volume tag is printed as "<LABEL:SERIAL>".
-V Print the alternate volume tag for each loaded medium, if any.
-s Print the additional sense code and additional sense code
qualifier for each element.
-S Print the element source address for each element.
-b Print SCSI bus information for each element. Note that this
information is valid only for drives.
-I Print the internal element addresses for each element. The
internal element address is not normally used with this driver.
It is reported for diagnostic purposes only.
-a Print all additional information (as in -vVsSba).
The status bits are defined as follows:
FULL Element contains a media unit.
IMPEXP Media was deposited into element by an outside human operator.
EXCEPT Element is in an abnormal state.
ACCESS Media in this element is accessible by a picker.
EXENAB Element supports passing media (exporting) to an outside human
operator.
INENAB Element supports receiving media (importing) from an outside
human operator.
ENVIRONMENT
CHANGER The default changer may be overridden by setting this
environmental variable to the desired changer device.
FILES
/dev/ch0 default changer device
EXAMPLES
chio move slot 3 drive 0
Move the media in slot 3 (fourth slot) to drive 0 (first drive).
chio move voltag VOLUME01 drive 0
Move the media with the barcode VOLUME01 to drive 0 (first
drive).
chio return drive 0
Remove the tape from drive 0 (first drive) and return it to its
original location in the rack.
chio setpicker 2
Configure the changer to use picker 2 (third picker) for
operations.
SEE ALSO
mt(1), mount(8)
HISTORY
A chio utility appeared in NetBSD 1.3. chio first appeared in
FreeBSD 2.2.
AUTHORS
The chio program and SCSI changer driver were written by Jason R. Thorpe
<thorpej@and.com> for And Communications, http://www.and.com/.
Additional work by Hans Huebner <hans@artcom.de> and Steve Gunn
<csg@waterspout.com>.
FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6 October 5, 2016 FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6
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