The Ftape Installation Guide - Loading ftape
NOTE: You have to be `root
' to insert a kernel module into
the kernel or to edit the file /etc/conf.modules. Either you
login as `root
' or do a `su
' at the shell prompt.
NOTE ALSO: You need a kernel without support for ftape
compiled into the kernel image. Please check the file
/proc/devices for a line like `27 ft
'. If /proc/devices
contains such a line(1), then you need to reconfigure your kernel
without support for ftape enabled, i.e. answer `no
' to the
Ftape (QIC-80/Travan) support
question. Recompile and install the new kernel in the normal way.
You now have to decide whether you prefer loading ftape explicitly
(e.g. from the startup scripts during system boot) or by using the
kerneld
auto-loading mechanism.
In either case, you should first edit the file /etc/conf.modules. The following should be added /etc/conf.modules:
# # load ftape/zftape automatically # alias char-major-27 zftape pre-install ftape /sbin/swapout 5
The meaning of each of these lines is as follows (lines starting with a
`#
' introduce a comment line):
alias char-major-27 zftape
'
kerneld
program. This line instructs the kerneld
module-auto-loading
program to load zftape when the kernel requires a driver for a character
device with major number 27.
pre-install ftape /sbin/swapout 5
'
modprobe
program to run `/sbin/swapout 5
'
automatically before trying to install ftape. This might be necessary to
decrease memory fragmentation of your computer system because ftape needs
at least 3 contiguous dma buffers of size 32kb. You may need to increase
the amount of memory swapout
allocates (5 megabytes in this
example). My computer system has 20 Megs of RAM (and lots of swap space)
and I go with `swapout 15
'. There is more information in a separate
section. See Swapout.
If you want to use the kerneld
auto-loading mechanism, then you
are ready now. The `alias char-major-27 zftape
' statement is enough
to instruct the kerneld
program to automatically load the right
modules when the kernel requests a driver for the floppy tape
drive. But note: in order to make auto-loading of kernel
modules possible the kerneld
program must be running. Normally
kerneld
is started from the system startup scripts such as
`/etc/rc.d/rc.local
'. The names of the system startup scripts vary
a lot between different Linux distributions; `/etc/rc.d/rc.local
'
need not even exist on your system).
Use the following command to determine whether kerneld
is
running:
ps -ax|grep kerneld
If this doesn't produce any output or shows only the `grep kerneld
'
line and you need to start kerneld
yourself and change your
system setup.
zftape uses the kerneld
daemon to load the zft-compressor module for
compression support on demand as required such that there is no need to
load this modules manually when kerneld
is running and your
kernel supports auto-loading of kernel modules. There is a separate
section with further remarks about ftape and
kerneld
. See Kerneld.
What follows are examples on how to insert the driver manually into the
kernel using the modprobe
utility. Note that you have to
be `root
' to do that.
/sbin/modprobe zft-compressor
In detail, this has the following effect: modprobe
reads the file
/etc/conf.modules and the file `/lib/modules/$(uname
-r)/modules.dep
' and deduces from the information found therein that is
has to do run the following commands in the given order:
/sbin/swapout 5
/sbin/insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/misc/ftape.o
/sbin/insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/misc/zftape.o
/sbin/insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/misc/zft-compressor.o
/sbin/modprobe zftape
(1) Of course, the ftape device in /proc/devices will also show up if any version of the ftape module is loaded.
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