AIX

hello to all,

i am trying to assing a tape drive to a virtual partition through VIO but i get the message "rmt0" is not a valid backing device.
the oslevel of my VIO is AIX 6.1.3.0. when i run the command
lsdev |grep rmt i get the following result:
rmt0 Available 08-08-00-0,0 Other SCSI Tape Drive
the problem is when i use the command mkvdev to assign the tape drive to the virtual partition. the command i use is the following:
mkvdev -vdev rmt0 -vadapter vhost3 -dev LTO4
when i run this command i get the message mentioned above.
also i check the entry in the ODM for the rmt and i when i run then command odmget CuDv i get the following result:
CuDv:
name = "rmt0"
status = 1
chgstatus = 0
ddins = "tape"
location = "08-08-00-0,0"
parent = "scsi0"
connwhere = "0,0"
PdDvLn = "tape/scsi/ost"
i find the the status=1 means that the device is defined. so is there a way to change the status of the device in the ODM database and if i can, does this fix the problem that i face?
if it is helpful the AIX version of my virtual partition is 5.3.0.0

thank you for your time

The OS level of your VIO is AIX 6.1.3.0?
As far as I know the latest level of VIOS is 2.2, you should not use the AIX level as a reference for a VIOS partition.

You cannot virtualize tape drives, only hard disks and recently CD / DVD devices can be virtualized, hence the message that your tape is not a valid backing device.

HTH.

i am sure that you CAN virtualise tape drives because i already did it and is working fine on the machines located in the production site.
this problem i only have it with the disaster recovery site machines. so i have the same partitions with same AIX versions on production and disaster recovery site.
on the production site i CAN virtualise tape drives and assign them to virtual partitions but on the disaster recovery site i get this message.

OK, yes, it seems it is now OK to virtualise tapes but only a few drives are supported and as yours shows as "Other SCSI Tape Drive" I guess it is not one of the few.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247590.pdf
Page 23:

Supported tape drives at the time of writing are:
Feature Code 5907 36/72 GB 4 mm DAT72 SAS Tape Drive
Feature Code 5619 DAT160: 80/160 GB DAT160 SAS Tape Drive
Feature Code 5746 Half High 800 GB/1.6 TB LTO4 SAS Tape Drive

Supported tape drives at the time of writing are:
Feature Code 5907 36/72 GB 4 mm DAT72 SAS Tape Drive
Feature Code 5619 DAT160: 80/160 GB DAT160 SAS Tape Drive
Feature Code 5746 Half High 800 GB/1.6 TB LTO4 SAS Tape Drive

LTO4 SAS Tape Drive is the tape drive that i am currently trying to assing to my virtual partition

Not by the looks of the lsdev output:

rmt0 Available 08-08-00-0,0 Other SCSI Tape Drive

The "Other" usually means the device is configured as a generic device because the correct driver is not loaded or the device is not recognised.

ok i have fixed the problem
what i did was to remove the tape drive from the VIO server using
rmdev -R <adapter_name) -l
and then from the HMC through Dynamic Logical Partitioning i move the adapter to the virtual partition i wanted. it looks fine now
thank you anyway