NAME¶

sg_raw - sends an arbitrary SCSI command to a device

SYNOPSIS¶

sg_raw [OPTIONS] DEVICE CDB0 CDB1 ...

DESCRIPTION¶

This utility sends an arbitrary SCSI command (between 6 and 256 bytes) to the DEVICE. There may be no associated data transfer; or data may be read from a file and sent to the DEVICE; or data may be received from the DEVICE and then displayed or written to a file.

The SCSI command may be between 6 and 256 bytes long. Each command byte is specified in plain hex format (00..FF) without a prefix or suffix. See EXAMPLES section below.

The commands pass through a generic SCSI interface which is implemented for several operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD and Windows.

OPTIONS¶

Arguments to long options are mandatory for short options as well.

-b, --binary: Dump data in binary form, even when writing to stdout.
-h, --help: Display usage information and exit.
-i, --infile=IFILE: Read data from IFILE instead of stdin. This option is ignored if --send is not specified.
-k, --skip=LEN: Skip the first LEN bytes of the input file or stream. This option is ignored if --send is not specified.
-n, --nosense: Don't display SCSI Sense information.
-o, --outfile=OFILE: Write data received from the DEVICE to OFILE. The data is written in binary. By default, data is dumped in hex format to stdout. If OFILE is '-' then data is dumped in binary to stdout. This option is ignored if --request is not specified.
-r, --request=RLEN: Expect to receive up to RLEN bytes of data from the DEVICE. RLEN may be suffixed with 'k' to use kilobytes (1024 bytes) instead of bytes. This option and --send are mutually exclusive.
-s, --send=SLEN: Read SLEN bytes of data, either from stdin or from a file, and send them to the DEVICE. This option and --request are mutually exclusive.
-t, --timeout=SEC: Wait up to SEC seconds for command completion (default: 20). Note that if a command times out the operating system may start by aborting the command and if that is unsuccessful it may attempt to reset the device.
-v, --verbose: Increase level of verbosity. Can be used multiple times.
-V, --version: Display version and license information and exit.

NOTES¶

The sg_inq utility can be used to send an INQUIRY command to a device to determine its peripheral device type (e.g. '1' for a streaming device (tape drive)) which determines which SCSI command sets a device should support (e.g. SPC and SSC). The sg_vpd utility probes the Vital Product Pages of a devices which may contain useful information.

The ability to send more than a 16 byte CDB (in some cases 12 byte CDB) may be restricted by the pass-through interface, the low level driver or the transport. Bidirectional data commands are no yet supported.

EXAMPLES¶

sg_raw /dev/scd0 1b 00 00 00 02 00: Eject the medium in CD drive /dev/scd0.
sg_raw -r 1k /dev/sg0 12 00 00 00 60 00: Perform an INQUIRY on /dev/sg0 and dump the response data (up to 1024 bytes) to stdout.
sg_raw -s 512 -i i512.bin /dev/sda 3b 02 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00: Showing an example of writing 512 bytes to a sector on a disk is a little dangerous. Instead this example will read i512.bin (assumed to be 512 bytes long) and use the SCSI WRITE BUFFER command to send it to the "data" buffer (that is mode 2). This is a safe operation.
sg_raw -r 512 -o o512.bin /dev/sda 3c 02 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00: This will use the SCSI READ BUFFER command to read 512 bytes from the "data" buffer (i.e. mode 2) then write it to the o512.bin file. When used in conjunction with the previous example, if both commands work then 'cmp i512.bin o512.bin' should show a match.

EXIT STATUS¶

The exit status of sg_raw is 0 when it is successful. Otherwise see the sg3_utils(8) man page.

AUTHOR¶

Written by Ingo van Lil

REPORTING BUGS¶

Report bugs to <inguin at gmx dot de>.