Media Robot Utility Guide to Installation, Connectivity, and Operation

VMS Software, Inc. (VSI) is an independent software company licensed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise to develop and support the OpenVMS operating system.

This manual is organized as follows:

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The full VSI OpenVMS documentation set can be found on the VMS Software Documentation webpage at https://docs.vmssoftware.com.

A media robot is an enclosure that houses one or more tape drives and multiple slots for storing cartridges, and a mechanical transport for moving cartridges between locations in the enclosure. Another term for media robot is medium changer.

According to the SCSI standard, media robots present four different objects (elements) to host systems: the transport, slots, drives, and ports.

Media Robot Utility (MRU) is a utility for controlling robotic medium changers. MRU allows users to control operations at a very low level: injecting and ejecting cartridges, loading and unloading cartridges, and showing status and media robot attributes.

MRU software includes two interfaces. The MRU command line interface allows for direct interaction with the MRU software and for the development of scripts for programmed operations. For information about the currently supported MRU commands, see Section 4, ''Media Robot Utility Command Reference''.

The MRU software also includes a Graphic User Interface (GUI) which is supported on the following versions of VSI OpenVMS:

This interface provides a simple way to operate a library or loader. By default, the GUI scans the system to provide access to all connected robots. To start MRU GUI, enter:

$ XROBOT

To use the GUI to access particular robots, specify those robot devices in a list following the XROBOT command like so:

$ XROBOT $1$DUA812: GKA2: $1$MIA4:

The system view window shows all libraries and loaders connected to the system. The robot dialog represents the selected library or loader. Use it to conduct operations with the robot and set robot-specific customizations. Cartridges can be moved from any location to any other location as allowed by the media robot hardware.

Online help is available through the Help pull down menu as well as through context sensitive help.

Refer to the documentation that comes with your media robot hardware for information about connecting to the computer system.

An SCSI device that is directly connected to an OpenVMS system uses the GKDRIVER software to control the movement of the robotics. The tape devices use tape device drivers. The GKDRIVER is a standard OpenVMS device driver and does not require a separate installation. However, you must first create a tape robot unit to use the robotic features on tape jukeboxes directly connected through a SCSI bus. The tape robot unit is named such that it describes the physical SCSI connection.

There are two categories of medium robots to consider, and each uses a different naming convention for its drive and changer devices because of the manner in which it is configured and physically connected to the SCSI bus. Keep these conventions in mind as you configure your systems, especially when creating tape robotic units.

DLT, DAT, and TSL10000 tape loaders treat their robotic devices and tape devices as logical units of the device target ID. The are four parts to the naming convention with this type of robotic loader:

MKA400 is the name of a tape device connected to the first SCSI bus seen at boot time, at target ID 4. GKA401 is the name of the robotic device and the name of the robotic unit corresponding to the tape device MKA400.

With ESL and MSL tape libraries, the drives and robot units are separate. There are three parts to the naming convention for a tape library:

When installing a medium changer system, you need to keep track of the device names for the drives serviced by the particular robotic transport device. MRU software cannot unload a cartridge from a drive in a medium changer system without the OpenVMS system first dismounting the cartridge. MRU software has no way of associating the drives with the robotic transport device. You must correlate the device and device name before unloading a cartridge.

For SCSI magazine loaders connected directly to an SCSI bus, enter the following command:

$ MCR SYSMAN IO CONNECT GKannn:/DRIVER=SYS$GKDRIVER/NOADAPTER

where GKannn: is the robot device name. With media loaders, the robot device name is always the same as the tape drive name incremented by one, and without any prefixes to the GK string (allocation class or NODE$ prefix). For example, the tape drive name $1$MKA200: could use the robot device name GKA201:.

VSI recommends that you include any such commands in your system startup command procedure.

When connecting a media robot to an HSJnn or HSDnn controller, you must associate the loader name with an internal pass-through name. After installing the media robot hardware and connecting the cables between host, controller, and media robot, you can make the association at the controller console terminal.

The example below shows the commands for connecting a MSL6480 Automated Tape Library system loader. The SCSI port is 5, target ID is 4, and LUN is 0.

CLI> ADD LOADER MSL6480A 5 4 0
CLI> ADD PASSTHROUGH P810A MSL6480A
CLI> ADD UNIT D810 P810A

Media Robot devices on Fibre Channel (FC) will be configured automatically. Since the device name of a Media Robot on Fibre Channel does not imply to its physical address, FC Media Robots cannot be configured manually (i.e. the CONNECT command cannot be used).

The naming scheme for Fibre Channel tapes and changers is similar to the one implemented on Fibre Channel disks. A Fibre Channel tape name will be of the form $2$MGAn, where n is a number chosen by OpenVMS. The letter chosen for the controller will always be A, with the prefix $2$. In general, the name creation algorithm chooses the first free unit number starting with 0, so the first tape discovered on the Fibre Channel will be named $2$MGA0. The next one will be named $2$MGA1, etc. Likewise, the first medium changer detected on the Fibre Channel will be named $2$GGA0, etc.

Example Device Configuration on Alpha

This section describes the installation prerequisite tasks, the installation procedure, and some follow-up information.

$ @SYS$COMMON:[SYSTEST]ROBOT$IVP.COM

Before you use the MRU software, you need to know the required privileges to execute the software. You should also understand the logging features and understand how to select a media robot for operation.

$ DEFINE MRU_LOG file_name

$ DEFINE MRU_VERBOSE 1

$ DEFINE MRU_ROBOT robot_name

$ DEFINE MRU_CASE_SENSITIVE 1

$ DEFINE MRU_OLD_STATUS 1

$ DEFINE MRU_WAIT value

$ DEFINE MRU_UNLOAD_DELAY value

$ ROBOT SHOW ROBOT $1$DUA560:
Robot Name  :  $1$DUA560:  Type:  SCSI

Media   Robot   Identifier: DEC   TL820   (C)   DEC2A5A

Slots:                176
Drives:               6
Inports:              1
Outports:             1
Transports:           2

MRU software uses these common commands parameters:

The following command descriptions show the general command syntax.

For commands that involve cartridges, such as LOAD and MOVE, you can optionally specify the cartridge name as it appears on the barcode. If the media robot has a vision capability, MRU can determine the bar code value before actually executing the command. If the specified bar code is not the bar code value at the source, the command fails before processing any farther. If the media robot does not qualify bar codes, the bar code value is ignored.

The following command descriptions show the general command syntax. Consult your online information for examples and detailed descriptions of commands for your operating system.