sg_ident
(1m)
Name
sg_ident - TION command
Synopsis
sg_ident [--ascii] [--clear] [--help] [--itype=IT] [--raw]
[--set] [--verbose] [--version] DEVICE
Description
SG3_UTILS SG_IDENT(8)
NAME
sg_ident - sends a SCSI REPORT or SET IDENTIFYING INFORMA-
TION command
SYNOPSIS
sg_ident [--ascii] [--clear] [--help] [--itype=IT] [--raw]
[--set] [--verbose] [--version] DEVICE
DESCRIPTION
Send a SCSI REPORT IDENTIFYING INFORMATION or SET IDENTIFY-
ING INFORMATION command to DEVICE. Prior to SPC-4 (revision
7) these commands were called REPORT DEVICE IDENTIFIER and
SET DEVICE IDENTIFIER respectively. SCSI devices that sup-
port these two commands allow users to write (set) identify-
ing information and report it back at some later time. The
information is persistent (i.e. stored on some non-volatile
medium within the SCSI device that will survive a power out-
age).
Typically the space allocated for the information is lim-
ited: SPC-4 (revision 7) states that for information type 0,
the minimum length is 64 bytes and the maximum is 512 bytes.
For other information types (1 to 126 inclusive) the maximum
length is 256 bytes. Also information types 1 to 126 (inclu-
sive) should contain a null terminated UTF-8 string. The
author has seen older disks that only support 16 bytes.
The default action when no options are given is to invoke
the Report Identifying Information command with the informa-
tion type defaulting to zero. Error reports are sent to
stderr. By default the information is shown in ASCII-HEX (up
to 16 bytes per line) with an ASCII representation to the
right with dots replacing non printable characters.
OPTIONS
Arguments to long options are mandatory for short options as
well.
-A, --ascii
invokes the Report Identifying Information command and
if anything is found interprets it as ASCII (or UTF-8
depending on the locale) and prints the information to
stdout.
-C, --clear
invokes the Set Identifying Information command with an
information length of zero. This has the effect of
clearing the existing information.
-h, --help
output the usage message then exit.
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-i, --itype=IT
where IT is the information type. Defaults to zero. The
maximum value is 127 which is special and cannot be
used with --set or --clear. The information type of 127
(if supported) causes the REPORT IDENTIFYING INFORMA-
TION command to respond with a list of available infor-
mation types and their maximum lengths in bytes. The
odd numbered information types between 3 and 125
(inclusive) are not to be used (as they clash with the
SCC-2 standard).
-r, --raw
invokes the Report Identifying information command and
if anything is found sends the information (which may
be binary) to stdout. Nothing else is sent to stdout
however error reports, if any, are sent to stderr.
-S, --set
first reads stdin until an EOF is detected then invokes
the Set Identifying Information command to set what has
been fetched from stdin as the information. The amount
of data read must be between 1 and 512 bytes length
(inclusive).
-v, --verbose
increase the level of verbosity, (i.e. debug output).
-V, --version
print the version string and then exit.
This utility permits users to write their own identifying
information to their SCSI devices. There are several other
types of descriptors (or designators) that the user cannot
change. These include the SCSI INQUIRY command with its
standard vendor and product identification strings and the
product revision level; plus the large amount of information
provided by the "Device Identification" VPD page (see
sg_vpd). There is also the READ MEDIA SERIAL NUMBER command
(see sg_rmsn). The MMC-4 command set for CD and DVDs has a
"media serial number" feature (0x109) [and a "logical unit
serial number" feature]. These can be viewed with the
sg_get_config utility.
EXAMPLES
First, to see if there is an existing information whose for-
mat is unknown (for information type 0), use no options:
# sg_ident /dev/sdb
00 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 30 1234567890
If it is ASCII then it can printed as such:
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SG3_UTILS SG_IDENT(8)
# sg_ident --ascii /dev/sdb
1234567890
The information can be copied to a file, cleared and then
re-asserted with this sequence:
# sg_ident --raw /dev/sdb > t
# sg_ident --clear /dev/sdb
# cat t | sg_ident --set /dev/sdb
EXIT STATUS
The exit status of sg_ident is 0 when it is successful. Oth-
erwise see the sg3_utils(8) man page.
AUTHORS
Written by Douglas Gilbert.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <dgilbert at interlog dot com>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Douglas Gilbert
This software is distributed under a FreeBSD license. There
is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+--------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Availability | system/storage/sg3_utils |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+--------------------------+
SEE ALSO
sg_vpd(sg3_utils), sg_rmsn(sg3_utils), sg_get_con-
fig(sg3_utils)
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from
http://sg.danny.cz/sg/p/sg3_utils-1.33.tgz
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at
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http://sg.danny.cz/sg/sg3_utils.html.
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