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Message-ID: <alpine.LNX.2.00.1203042208460.5050@kai.makisara.local>
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2012 22:09:41 +0200 (EET)
From: Kai Makisara <Kai.Makisara@...umbus.fi>
To: Lee Duncan <lduncan@...e.com>
cc: linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] SCSI st: expand ability to write immediate filemarks
On Thu, 1 Mar 2012, Lee Duncan wrote:
> The st tape driver recently added the MTWEOFI ioctl, which writes
> a tape filemark (EOF), like the MTWEOF ioctl, except that MTWEOFI
> returns immediately. This makes certain applications, like backup
> software, run much more quickly on buffered tape drives.
>
> Since legacy applications do not know about this new MTWEOFI ioctl,
> this patch adds a new ioctl option that tells the st driver to return
> immediately when writing an EOF (i.e. a filemark). This new flag
> is much like the existing flag that tells the st driver to perform
> writes (and certain other IOs) immediately, but this new flag only
> applies to writing EOFs.
>
> This new feature is controlled via the MTSETDRVBUFFER ioctl, using
> the newly-defined MT_ST_NOWAIT_EOF flag.
>
> Use of this new feature is displayed via the sysfs tape "options"
> attribute.
>
> The st documentation was updated to mention this new flag, as well
> as the problems that can occur from using it.
>
> Signed-off-by: Lee Duncan <lduncan@...e.com>
Acked-by: Kai Makisara <kai.makisara@...umbus.fi>
> ---
> Documentation/scsi/st.txt | 4 ++++
> drivers/scsi/st.c | 21 ++++++++++++++++++---
> drivers/scsi/st.h | 1 +
> include/linux/mtio.h | 1 +
> 4 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
Thanks,
Kai
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