using a firewire disk under linux is not trivial, but it does work reliably and repeatably. i am quite satisfied with the operation.
in my setup, i am running a sony vaio laptop, pcg-xg29k, with redhat
7.3. i have a maxtor 1394 external 80G drive connected to the vaio.
the steps i've taken to make this work are:
1. turn off plug and play in the bios.
2. power on the external disk before the computer.
3. create a mount point for the drive.
4. after boot and subsequent login, i run my startup script,
mount-firewire. you'll need to modify it for your installation.
(could be put into /etc/rc.d/rc.local.)
5. mount-firewire, in turn, calls rescan-scsi-bus.sh. (you'll read
about it in the 1394 project pages howto's.)
6. optional: nfs serve the volume to other nfs clients. or samba
share the volume, etc.
i've included a list of some firewire url's and the two scripts
mentioned above in the following shar file.
cheers.
scowles at bioinfogen dot com
===========================================
Sunday, July 28, 2002, 6:00:36 PM, you wrote:
J> I'm using RH7.3. Must I recompile my kernel to be able to use a firewire
J> drive with my pentium 3 triple boot (bootmagic, 98/xp/rh7.3) laptop? Is it
J> safe (for my very expensive data) to use a firewire drive?
J> I've never compiled a kernal; wish there were an easier way for this newbie.
J> Any advice or pointers very appreciated.
J> Thanks,
J> Jim
===========================================
#!/bin/sh
# This is a shell archive (produced by GNU sharutils 4.2.1).
# To extract the files from this archive, save it to some FILE, remove
# everything before the `!/bin/sh' line above, then type `sh FILE'.
#
# Made on 2002-07-28 22:26 PDT by <scowles@BUBO5>.
# Source directory was `/mnt/b5c/users/scowles'.
#
# Existing files will *not* be overwritten unless `-c' is specified.
#
# This shar contains:
# length mode name
# ------ ---------- ------------------------------------------
# 414 -rw-rw-rw- 1394
# 368 -r-xr-xr-x bin/mount-firewire
# 2775 -r-xr-xr-x bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh
#
save_IFS="${IFS}"
IFS="${IFS}:"
gettext_dir=FAILED
locale_dir=FAILED
first_param="$1"
for dir in $PATH
do
if test "$gettext_dir" = FAILED && test -f $dir/gettext \
&& ($dir/gettext --version >/dev/null 2>&1)
then
set `$dir/gettext --version 2>&1`
if test "$3" = GNU
then
gettext_dir=$dir
fi
fi
if test "$locale_dir" = FAILED && test -f $dir/shar \
&& ($dir/shar --print-text-domain-dir >/dev/null 2>&1)
then
locale_dir=`$dir/shar --print-text-domain-dir`
fi
done
IFS="$save_IFS"
if test "$locale_dir" = FAILED || test "$gettext_dir" = FAILED
then
echo=echo
else
TEXTDOMAINDIR=$locale_dir
export TEXTDOMAINDIR
TEXTDOMAIN=sharutils
export TEXTDOMAIN
echo="$gettext_dir/gettext -s"
fi
if touch -am -t 200112312359.59 $$.touch >/dev/null 2>&1 && test ! -f 200112312359.59
-a -f $$.touch; then
shar_touch='touch -am -t $1$2$3$4$5$6.$7 "$8"'
elif touch -am 123123592001.59 $$.touch >/dev/null 2>&1 && test ! -f 123123592001.59
-a ! -f 123123592001.5 -a -f $$.touch; then
shar_touch='touch -am $3$4$5$6$1$2.$7 "$8"'
elif touch -am 1231235901 $$.touch >/dev/null 2>&1 && test ! -f 1231235901 -a -f
$$.touch; then
shar_touch='touch -am $3$4$5$6$2 "$8"'
else
shar_touch=:
echo
$echo 'WARNING: not restoring timestamps. Consider getting and'
$echo "installing GNU \`touch', distributed in GNU File Utilities..."
echo
fi
rm -f 200112312359.59 123123592001.59 123123592001.5 1231235901 $$.touch
#
if mkdir _sh02964; then
$echo 'x -' 'creating lock directory'
else
$echo 'failed to create lock directory'
exit 1
fi
# ============= 1394 ==============
if test -f '1394' && test "$first_param" != -c; then
$echo 'x -' SKIPPING '1394' '(file already exists)'
else
$echo 'x -' extracting '1394' '(gzipped)'
sed 's/^X//' << 'SHAR_EOF' | uudecode &&
SHAR_EOF
$echo 'gunzipping file' '1394' &&
gzip -d < _sh02964/gzi > '1394' &&
(set 20 02 07 28 22 14 27 '1394'; eval "$shar_touch") &&
chmod 0666 '1394' ||
$echo 'restore of' '1394' 'failed'
if ( md5sum --help 2>&1 | grep 'sage: md5sum \[' ) >/dev/null 2>&1 \
&& ( md5sum --version 2>&1 | grep -v 'textutils 1.12' ) >/dev/null; then
md5sum -c << SHAR_EOF >/dev/null 2>&1 \
|| $echo '1394:' 'MD5 check failed'
44c5a0e1a756e53605a9a1f89cc478d9 1394
SHAR_EOF
else
shar_count="`LC_ALL= LC_CTYPE= LANG= wc -c < '1394'`"
test 414 -eq "$shar_count" ||
$echo '1394:' 'original size' '414,' 'current size' "$shar_count!"
fi
fi
# ============= bin/mount-firewire ==============
if test ! -d 'bin'; then
$echo 'x -' 'creating directory' 'bin'
mkdir 'bin'
fi
if test -f 'bin/mount-firewire' && test "$first_param" != -c; then
$echo 'x -' SKIPPING 'bin/mount-firewire' '(file already exists)'
else
$echo 'x -' extracting 'bin/mount-firewire' '(gzipped)'
sed 's/^X//' << 'SHAR_EOF' | uudecode &&
SHAR_EOF
$echo 'gunzipping file' 'bin/mount-firewire' &&
gzip -d < _sh02964/gzi > 'bin/mount-firewire' &&
(set 20 02 07 28 22 16 20 'bin/mount-firewire'; eval "$shar_touch") &&
chmod 0555 'bin/mount-firewire' ||
$echo 'restore of' 'bin/mount-firewire' 'failed'
if ( md5sum --help 2>&1 | grep 'sage: md5sum \[' ) >/dev/null 2>&1 \
&& ( md5sum --version 2>&1 | grep -v 'textutils 1.12' ) >/dev/null; then
md5sum -c << SHAR_EOF >/dev/null 2>&1 \
|| $echo 'bin/mount-firewire:' 'MD5 check failed'
5cc1b095287cc40955d6ac7ff2613ba6 bin/mount-firewire
SHAR_EOF
else
shar_count="`LC_ALL= LC_CTYPE= LANG= wc -c < 'bin/mount-firewire'`"
test 368 -eq "$shar_count" ||
$echo 'bin/mount-firewire:' 'original size' '368,' 'current size' "$shar_count!"
fi
fi
# ============= bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh ==============
if test -f 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh' && test "$first_param" != -c; then
$echo 'x -' SKIPPING 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh' '(file already exists)'
else
$echo 'x -' extracting 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh' '(gzipped)'
sed 's/^X//' << 'SHAR_EOF' | uudecode &&
SHAR_EOF
$echo 'gunzipping file' 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh' &&
gzip -d < _sh02964/gzi > 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh' &&
(set 20 02 07 28 22 17 08 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh'; eval "$shar_touch") &&
chmod 0555 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh' ||
$echo 'restore of' 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh' 'failed'
if ( md5sum --help 2>&1 | grep 'sage: md5sum \[' ) >/dev/null 2>&1 \
&& ( md5sum --version 2>&1 | grep -v 'textutils 1.12' ) >/dev/null; then
md5sum -c << SHAR_EOF >/dev/null 2>&1 \
|| $echo 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh:' 'MD5 check failed'
8dbc19c95b3c1bddbf2d16cdde960ad4 bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh
SHAR_EOF
else
shar_count="`LC_ALL= LC_CTYPE= LANG= wc -c < 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh'`"
test 2775 -eq "$shar_count" ||
$echo 'bin/rescan-scsi-bus.sh:' 'original size' '2775,' 'current size'
"$shar_count!"
fi
fi
rm -fr _sh02964
exit 0
_sh02964_gzi
Description: Binary data
_sh02964_gzi
Description: Binary data
_sh02964_gzi
Description: Binary data
