[Bacula-users] When to use /dev/nst0 versus /dev/st0?

[John F. <jfe...@si...>]

Quick very general question:   How does one determine when it's appropriate=
 to refer to one's tape drive in the config files as /dev/nst0 or /dev/st0?=
  Drive is a VXA-2 in a VXA PacketLoader 1x10 1U autochanger, and Exabyte's=
 diags identify the autochanger as /dev/sg4 and the drive as /dev/sg3, but =
read on the list earlier that tape drives should be addressed as streaming =
tape devices rather than SCSI generic devices.

I've got the following streaming tape device files in the server, and of th=
em, the drive seems to respond well to /dev/nst0 as well as to /dev/st0, bu=
t which is best to use for this drive?

crw-rw-rw-  1 bacula bacula 9, 128 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/nst0
crw-rw-rw-  1 bacula bacula 9, 224 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/nst0a
crw-rw-rw-  1 bacula bacula 9, 160 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/nst0l
crw-rw-rw-  1 bacula bacula 9, 192 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/nst0m
crw-rw----  1 root   disk   9,   0 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/st0
crw-rw----  1 root   disk   9,  96 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/st0a
crw-rw----  1 root   disk   9,  32 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/st0l
crw-rw----  1 root   disk   9,  64 Sep 26 10:27 /dev/st0m

John J. Felczak
Build & Integration Manager
Siderean Software, Inc.