This driver supports the following system calls, most of which are typical for a character device driver in Linux. They are: .:: paper.wf ::.
open()
close()
write()
read()
ioctl()
poll()
fcntl(sg_fd, F_SETFL, oflags | FASYNC)
mmap()
A user application accesses the sg driver by using the open() system call on sg device file name. Each sg device file name corresponds to one (potentially) attached SCSI device. These are usually found in the .:: www.redsea.gov.eg ::. /dev directory. Here are some sg device file names:
$ ls -l /dev/sg[01] crw-rw---- 1 root disk 21, 0 Aug 30 16:30 /dev/sg0 crw-rw---- 1 root disk 21, 1 Aug 30 16:30 /dev/sg1 |
$ cd /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0 $ ls -l generic crw-r----- 1 root root 21, 1 Dec 31 1969 generic |
A significant addition in sg v3 is an ioctl() called SG_IO which is functionally equivalent to a write() followed by a blocking read(). In certain contexts the write()/read() combination have advantages over SG_IO (e.g. command queuing) and continue to be supported. [Open Source DNS]
The existing (and original) sg interface based on the sg_header structure is still available using a write()/read() sequence as before. The SG_IO ioctl will only accept the new interface based on the sg_io_hdr_t structure. .:: www.blurb.com ::.
The sg v3 driver thus has a write() call that can accept either the older sg_header structure or the new sg_io_hdr_t structure. The write() calls decides which interface is being used based on the second integer position of the passed header (i.e. sg_header::reply_len or sg_io_hdr_t::dxfer_direction). If it is a positive number then the old interface is assumed. If it is a negative number then the new interface is assumed. The direction constants placed in 'dxfer_direction' in the new interface have been chosen to have negative values. .:: animeforums.net ::.
If a request is sent to a write() with the sg_io_hdr_t interface then the corresponding read() that fetches the response must also use the sg_io_hdr_t interface. The same rule applies to the sg_header interface. .:: telegra.ph ::.
This document concentrates on the sg_io_hdr_t interface introduced in the sg version 3 driver. For the definition of the older sg_header interface see the sg version 2 documentation. A brief description is given in Appendix B.