Lets start by assuming you’ve already installed mhvtl, you have a few virtual tape drives, a media changer, and a bunch of virtual tapes. You can control the media changer or library device at /dev/changer. Using MTX utilities, you can ask the changer to load tapes into drives and list map, etc. But i’ve found it’s actually easier for testing to control the drives directly. You can load and unload tapes directly into and out of a drive by barcode label and tape drive queue.

I know there’s already big companies making Virtual Tape Library (VTL) devices, but they’re expensive and I’m just looking for a cheap solution for testing. And it’s working quite well so far as a proof-of-concept for my needs.

After setting it up you should see a media changer and a basic set of tape drives using by using dmesg or lsscsi.
====$ sudo dmesg | grep scsi====

sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 1x/1x xa/form2 cdda tray
sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
scsi3 : mhvtl: version 0.15.11 [20090328-0], opts=0×0
scsi 3:0:0:0: Medium Changer STK L700 5400 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
scsi 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 8
scsi4 : mhvtl: version 0.15.11 [20090328-0], opts=0×0
scsi 4:0:0:0: Sequential-Access QUANTUM SDLT600 5400 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
scsi 4:0:0:1: Sequential-Access QUANTUM SDLT600 5400 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
scsi 4:0:0:2: Sequential-Access QUANTUM SDLT600 5400 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
scsi 4:0:0:3: Sequential-Access IBM … Read More »