SCSICTL(8) BSD System Manager's Manual SCSICTL(8)NAMEscsictl — a program to manipulate SCSI devices and busses
SYNOPSISscsictl device command [arg [...]]
DESCRIPTIONscsictl allows a user or system administrator to issue commands to and
otherwise control SCSI devices and busses. It is used by specifying a
device or bus to manipulate, the command to perform, and any arguments
the command may require. scsictl determines if the specified device is
an actual device or a SCSI bus automatically, and selects the appropriate
command set.
For commands which scsictl issues a SCSI command to the device directly,
any returned sense information will be decoded by scsictl and displayed
to the standard output.
DEVICE COMMANDS
The following commands are supported for SCSI devices:
defects [primary] [grown] [block|byte|physical]
Read the primary and/or grown defect lists from the specified device in
block, byte from index, or physical sector format. The default is to
return both the primary and grown defect lists in physical sector format.
This command is only supported on direct access devices.
format [blocksize [immediate]]
(Low level) format the named device. If the optional blocksize parameter
is provided, the device geometry will be modified to use the specified
blocksize. If this parameter is different form the Current or Default
Mode Page 3 parameters, the device will update Mode Page 3 at the suc‐
cessful completion of the Format. Device geometry may change as a result
of using a new device blocksize. When the optional blocksize parameter
is specified, the Defect List on the drive will revert to the original
primary defect list created at the time of manufacture if available. The
drive will usually recertify itself during the Format and add any other
defective blocks to the new Defect List. Some disks may not support the
ability to change the blocksize and may enter a Degraded Mode when fed a
Format command of this type. If this happens the standard recovery for
the drive requires issuing a correct Format command, i.e. one without the
blocksize parameter.
When the immediate parameter is also specified, the disk is instructed to
return from the format command right away. It continues to format, and
every ten seconds scsictl issues a TEST UNIT READY command to check the
associated sense data. This associated sense data has a progress indica‐
tor which indicates how far the format is progressing. Note well that
most SCSI disk drives prior to a few years ago do not support this
option.
identify
Identify the specified device, displaying the device's SCSI bus, target,
and lun, as well as the device's vendor, product, and revision strings.
reassign blkno [blkno [...]]
Issues a REASSIGN BLOCKS command to the device, adding the specified
blocks to the grown defect list. This command is only supported on
direct access devices.
release
Send a “RELEASE” command to the device to release a reservation on it.
reserve
Send a “RESERVE” command to the device to place a reservation on it.
reset
Reset the device. This command is only supported for devices which sup‐
port the SCIOCRESET ioctl.
start
Send a “START” command to the device. This is useful typically only for
disk devices.
stop
Send a “STOP” command to the device. This is useful typically only for
disk devices.
tur
Send a “TEST UNIT READY” command to the device. This is useful for gen‐
erating current device status.
getcache
Returns basic cache parameters for the device.
setcache none|r|w|rw [save]
Set basic cache parameters for the device. The cache may be disabled
(none), the read cache enabled (r), the write cache enabled (w), or both
read and write cache enabled (rw). If the drive's cache parameters are
savable, specifying save after the cache enable state will cause the
parameters to be saved in non-volatile storage.
flushcache
Explicitly flushes the write cache.
setspeed speed
Set the highest speed that the optical drive should use for reading data.
The units are multiples of a single speed CDROM (150 KB/s). Specify 0 to
use the drive's fastest speed.
BUS COMMANDS
The following commands are supported for SCSI busses:
reset
Reset the SCSI bus. This command is only supported if the host adapter
supports the SCBUSIORESET ioctl.
scan target lun
Scan the SCSI bus for devices. This is useful if a device was not con‐
nected or powered on when the system was booted. The target and lun
arguments specify which SCSI target and lun on the bus is to be scanned.
Either may be wildcarded by specifying the keyword “any” or “all”.
detach target lun
Detach the specified device from the bus. Useful if a device is powered
down after use. The target and lun arguments have the same meaning as
for the scan command, and may also be wildcarded.
NOTES
When scanning the SCSI bus, information about newly recognized devices is
printed to console. No information is printed for already probed
devices.
FILES
/dev/scsibus* - for commands operating on SCSI busses
SEE ALSOioctl(2), cd(4), ch(4), sd(4), se(4), ss(4), st(4), uk(4), atactl(8),
dkctl(8)HISTORY
The scsictl command first appeared in NetBSD 1.4.
AUTHORS
The scsictl command was written by Jason R. Thorpe of the Numerical Aero‐
space Simulation Facility, NASA Ames Research Center.
BSD January 22, 2007 BSD
