sg_bg_ctl - send SCSI BACKGROUND CONTROL command
sg_bg_ctl [--ctl=CTL] [--help] [--time=TN] [--verbose] [--version] DEVICE
SG_BG_CTL(8) SG3_UTILS SG_BG_CTL(8) NAME sg_bg_ctl - send SCSI BACKGROUND CONTROL command SYNOPSIS sg_bg_ctl [--ctl=CTL] [--help] [--time=TN] [--verbose] [--version] DEVICE DESCRIPTION Sends a SCSI BACKGROUND CONTROL command to the DEVICE. This command was first found in the SBC-4 draft standard revision 8 (sbc4r08.pdf). It can be used to start and stop 'advanced background operations' on the DEVICE. Only resource or thin provisioned devices (logical units which are typically (solid state) disks) support this command. Those advanced background operations often include garbage collection type operations which may degrade the disk's performance while they are being per- formed. OPTIONS Arguments to long options are mandatory for short options as well. -c, --ctl=CTL CTL is the value placed in the BO_CTL field of the BACKGROUND CONTROL command (cdb). It is a two bit field so has 4 variants: 0 does not change the host initiated advanced background opera- tions; 1 starts these operations; 2 stops these operations and 3 is reserved. The default value is 0. -h, --help output the usage message then exit. -t, --time=TN TN is a maximum time (with a unit of 100 ms or 1/10 second) that advanced background operations can occur. This value is ignored if the CTL argument is other than 1. The default value is 0 which means there is no maximum time limit. Only values 0 to 255 (which is 25.5 seconds) can be given. This value is place in the BO_TIME field of the BACKGROUND CONTROL command. -v, --verbose increase the level of verbosity, (i.e. debug output). -V, --version print the version string and then exit. ATTRIBUTES See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes: +---------------+--------------------------+ |ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +---------------+--------------------------+ |Availability | system/storage/sg3_utils | +---------------+--------------------------+ |Stability | Pass-through uncommitted | +---------------+--------------------------+ NOTES According to T10, support for 'background control operations' is indi- cated by the BOCS bit being set in the Block device characteristics VPD page [0xb1]. The setting of the BOCS bit can be checked with the sg_vpd and sdparm utilities (and it is read only). There is a Back- ground operations control mode page [0xa, 0x6] with a BO_MODE field for modifying the action of this operation. The BO_MODE field can be accessed and possibly modified with the sdparm utility. The BO_STATUS field can be found in the Background operation log page [0x15, 0x2] and that can be viewed with the sg_logs utility. The current draft describing this area is SBC-4 revision 10 (sbc4r10.pdf) in clause 4.33 . That contains the following example of a background operation: "Advanced background operation may include NAND block erase operations, media read operations, and media write opera- tions (e.g., garbage collection), which may impact response time for normal read requests or write requests from the application client." Source code for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source- code-downloads.html. This software was built from source available at https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland. The original community source was downloaded from http://sg.danny.cz/sg/p/sg3_utils-1.46.tgz. Further information about this software can be found on the open source community website at http://sg.danny.cz/sg/sg3_utils.html. EXIT STATUS The exit status of sg_bg_ctl is 0 when it is successful. Otherwise 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) 2016 Douglas Gilbert This software is distributed under a FreeBSD license. There is NO war- ranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PUR- POSE. SEE ALSO sg_vpd,sg_logs(sg3_utils); sdparm(sdparm) sg3_utils-1.43 May 2016 SG_BG_CTL(8)