Introduction ============ The FreeBSD port of sg3_utils contains those utilities that are _not_ specific to Linux. In some cases the FreeBSD camcontrol command supplies similar functionality; for example 'sg_map' is similar to 'camcontrol devlist'. The dd variants from the sg3_utils package (e.g. sg_dd) rely on too many Linux idiosyncrasies to be easily ported. A new package called 'ddpt' contains a utility with similar functionality to sg_dd and ddpt is available for FreeBSD. Supported Utilities =================== Here is a list of utilities that have been ported: sg_bg_ctl sg_compare_and_write sg_decode_sense sg_format sg_get_config sg_get_elem_status sg_get_lba_status sg_ident sg_inq [dropped ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE capability] sg_logs sg_luns sg_modes sg_opcodes sg_persist sg_prevent sg_raw sg_rdac sg_read_block_limits sg_read_buffer sg_read_long sg_readcap sg_reassign sg_referrals sg_rep_pip sg_rep_zones sg_requests sg_rmsn sg_rtpg sg_safte sg_sanitize sg_sat_identify sg_sat_phy_event sg_sat_set_features sg_seek sg_senddiag sg_ses sg_start sg_stpg sg_stream_ctl sg_sync sg_turs sg_verify sg_unmap sg_vpd sg_wr_mode sg_write_buffer sg_write_long sg_write_same sg_write_verify sg_write_x sg_zone Most utility names are indicative of the main SCSI command that they execute. Some utilities are slightly higher level, for example sg_ses fetches SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) status pages and can send control pages. Each utility has a man page (placed in section 8). An overview of sg3_utils can be found at: https://sg.danny.cz/sg/sg3_utils.html . A copy of the "sg3_utils.html" file is in the "doc" subdirectory. The executables and library can be built from the source code in the tarball and installed with the familiar "./configure ; make ; make install" sequence. If this fails try running the "./autogen.sh" script prior to that sequence. There are generic instruction on configure and friend in the INSTALL file. Some man pages have examples which use Linux device names which hopefully will not confuse the FreeBSD users. Device naming ============= In FreeBSD disks have block names like '/dev/da0' with a corresponding pass-through device name like '/dev/pass0'. Use this command: "camcontrol devlist" to see that SCSI devices available. To list NVMe devices: "nvmecontrol devlist" can be used. Any many, but not all contexts, the device name can be used without the '/dev/' prefix. FreeBSD is relatively unique in this respect and support for this abbreviated form has been broken in this package and fixed in sg3_utils release 1.46 . Device naming for NVMe is a bit more complex. Controllers have names like /dev/nvme0 and namespaces /dev/nvme0ns1 . Partitions are not supported on /dev/nvme0ns1 type nodes. Instead there are /dev/nvd0 and /dev/nvd0p where is th partition number starting at 1. The nvd driver (written by Intel) is not CAM compatible and has its own utility nvmecontrol which has similar capabilities as camcontrol has for CAM devices. In FreeBSD release 12 the nda driver was introduced with names like /dev/nda0 and /dev/nda0n. The difference is that nda is CAM compatible. From the point of view of this package, the nda driver is preferred as CAM supports NVMe command timeouts and the error processing is more mature. FreeBSD installation ==================== The traditional './configure ; make ; make install' sequence from the top level of the unpacked tarball will work on FreeBSD. But the man pages will be placed under the /usr/local/share/man directory which unfortunately is not on the standard manpath. One solution is to add this path by creating a file with a name like local_share.conf in the /usr/local/etc/man.d/ directory and placing this line in it: MANPATH /usr/local/share/man FreeBSD 9.0 has a "ports" entry for sg3_utils under the /usr/ports/sysutils directory. It points to version 1.28 of sg3_utils which is now a bit dated. It could be used as a template to point to more recent versions. kFreeBSD ======== sg3_utils can be built into a Debian package for kFreeBSD using the ./build_debian.sh script in the top level directory. This has been tested with Debian 6.0 release. Details ======= Most of the ported utilities listed above use SCSI command functions declared in sg_cmds_*.h headers . Those SCSI command functions are implemented in the corresponding ".c" files. The ".c" files pass SCSI commands to the host operating system via an interface declared in sg_pt.h . There are currently five implementations of that interface depending on the host operating system: - sg_pt_linux.c - sg_pt_freebsd.c - sg_pt_osf1.c [Tru64] - sg_pt_win32.c - sg_pt_solaris.c The sg_pt_freebsd.c file uses the FreeBSD CAM SCSI pass through mechanism. Hence only FreeBSD device nodes that support CAM can be used. These can be viewed with the "camcontrol devlist" command. To access ATAPI devices (e.g. ATAPI DVD drives) the kernel may need to be configured with the "atapicam" device. Attempts to send SCSI commands with data-in or data-out buffers around 64 KB and larger failed on a FreeBSD 7.0 with an "argument list too long" error message. There is an associated kernel message (viewable with dmesg) that an attempt has been made to map bytes which is greater than DFLTPHYS(65536). Still a problem in FreeBSD 8.1 . Due to CAM overhead the largest power of 2 that can fit through with one command is 32768 bytes (32 KB). FreeBSD 9.0 is the most recent version of FreeBSD tested with these utilities. Douglas Gilbert 1st May 2021