[ILUG] accessing scsi devices

[Trish Murphy]

Ok I'm having a bit of a problem here.

Big picture is is that I'm running an application in a SPARC solaris 8
which queries scsi devices attached to the computer.
(when saying scsi devices I mean a storage system with raids created on
it).
The HBA in the system is a JNI ( though I don't think that matters). I'm
using the USCSI command interface to send scsi diagnostic commands down
to the raw devices through the sd driver and I am using ioctl() to send
them. This all works perfectly if there is already a raid on the storage
system.


However if there are no raids on the system then a dummy (2meg) raid is
present on the system in order to let the OS think that there is
something there.
No my problem is is that with Solaris, in order for me to be able to
send and receive commands from my scsi devices I need to  write a label
to the devices by running the format command and selecting the disk.

But the dummy raid is write protected so therefore solaris can't write a
label to it and I can access it.


Basically what I'm asking I suppose is is there any other way that I can
communicate with raw devices attached to the computer other than having
to format the device first.


any suggestions at all would be appreciated :)

--

Trish
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