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- SCSI subsystem documentation
- ============================
- The Linux Documentation Project (LDP) maintains a document describing
- the SCSI subsystem in the Linux kernel (lk) 2.4 series. See:
- http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/SCSI-2.4-HOWTO . The LDP has single
- and multiple page HTML renderings as well as postscript and pdf.
- It can also be found at:
- http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.torque.net/scsi/SCSI-2.4-HOWTO
- Notes on using modules in the SCSI subsystem
- ============================================
- The scsi support in the linux kernel can be modularized in a number of
- different ways depending upon the needs of the end user. To understand
- your options, we should first define a few terms.
- The scsi-core (also known as the "mid level") contains the core of scsi
- support. Without it you can do nothing with any of the other scsi drivers.
- The scsi core support can be a module (scsi_mod.o), or it can be built into
- the kernel. If the core is a module, it must be the first scsi module
- loaded, and if you unload the modules, it will have to be the last one
- unloaded. In practice the modprobe and rmmod commands (and "autoclean")
- will enforce the correct ordering of loading and unloading modules in
- the SCSI subsystem.
- The individual upper and lower level drivers can be loaded in any order
- once the scsi core is present in the kernel (either compiled in or loaded
- as a module). The disk driver (sd_mod.o), cdrom driver (sr_mod.o),
- tape driver ** (st.o) and scsi generics driver (sg.o) represent the upper
- level drivers to support the various assorted devices which can be
- controlled. You can for example load the tape driver to use the tape drive,
- and then unload it once you have no further need for the driver (and release
- the associated memory).
- The lower level drivers are the ones that support the individual cards that
- are supported for the hardware platform that you are running under. Those
- individual cards are often called Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). For example the
- aic7xxx.o driver is used to control all recent SCSI controller cards from
- Adaptec. Almost all lower level drivers can be built either as modules or
- built into the kernel.
- ** There is a variant of the st driver for controlling OnStream tape
- devices. Its module name is osst.o .
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