Provided by: sg3-utils_1.46-1ubuntu0.22.04.1_amd64 bug

NAME

       sg_dd - copy data to and from files and devices, especially SCSI devices

SYNOPSIS

       sg_dd   [bs=BS]  [conv=CONV]  [count=COUNT]  [ibs=BS]  [if=IFILE]  [iflag=FLAGS]  [obs=BS]
       [of=OFILE] [oflag=FLAGS] [seek=SEEK] [skip=SKIP] [--help] [--verbose] [--version]

       [blk_sgio={0|1}] [bpt=BPT] [cdbsz={6|10|12|16}] [cdl=CDL]  [coe={0|1|2|3}]  [coe_limit=CL]
       [dio={0|1}]   [odir={0|1}]   [of2=OFILE2]  [retries=RETR]  [sync={0|1}]  [time={0|1}[,TO]]
       [verbose=VERB] [--dry-run] [--progress] [--verify]

DESCRIPTION

       Copy data to and from any files. Specialized for "files" that are Linux SCSI generic  (sg)
       devices,  raw  devices or other devices that support the SG_IO ioctl (which are only found
       in the lk 2.6 series). Similar syntax and semantics to dd(1) command.

       The first group in the synopsis above are "standard" Unix dd(1) operands. The second group
       are extra options added by this utility.  Both groups are defined below.

       When  the  --verify  option  is given, then the read side is the same but the on the write
       side, the WRITE SCSI command is replaced  by  the  VERIFY  SCSI  command.  If  any  VERIFY
       commands  yields  a  sense  key  of  MISCOMPARE  then  the verify operation will stop. The
       --verify option can only be used when OFILE is either a sg device or a block  device  with
       oflag=sgio  also  given. When the --verify option is used, this utility works in a similar
       fashion to the Unix cmp(1) command.

       This utility is only supported on Linux whereas most  other  utilities  in  the  sg3_utils
       package  have  been ported to other operating systems. A utility called "ddpt" has similar
       syntax and functionality to sg_dd. ddpt drops some Linux specific  features  while  adding
       some other generic features. This allows ddpt to be ported to other operating systems.

OPTIONS

       blk_sgio={0|1}
              when  set  to  0, block devices (e.g. /dev/sda) are treated like normal files (i.e.
              read(2) and write(2) are used for IO). When set to 1, block devices are assumed  to
              accept  the SG_IO ioctl and SCSI commands are issued for IO. This is only supported
              for 2.6 series kernels. Note that ATAPI devices (e.g. cd/dvd players) use the  SCSI
              command  set  but  ATA disks do not (unless there is a protocol conversion as often
              occurs in the USB mass storage class). If the input or output  device  is  a  block
              device  partition  (e.g.  /dev/sda3)  then setting this option causes the partition
              information to be ignored (since access is  directly  to  the  underlying  device).
              Default is 0. See the 'sgio' flag.

       bpt=BPT
              each  IO  transaction will be made using BPT blocks (or less if near the end of the
              copy). Default is 128 for logical block sizes less that 2048 bytes,  otherwise  the
              default  is  32. So for bs=512 the reads and writes will each convey 64 KiB of data
              by default (less if near the end of the  transfer  or  memory  restrictions).  When
              cd/dvd  drives are accessed, the logical block size is typically 2048 bytes and bpt
              defaults to 32 which again implies 64 KiB  transfers.  The  block  layer  when  the
              blk_sgio=1  option  is  used  has  relatively  low  upper limits for transfer sizes
              (compared to sg device nodes, see /sys/block/<dev_name>/queue/max_sectors_kb ).

       bs=BS  where BS must be the logical block size of the physical device (if either the input
              or  output files are accessed via SCSI commands). Note that this differs from dd(1)
              which permits BS to be an integral  multiple.  Default  is  512  which  is  usually
              correct  for disks but incorrect for cdroms (which normally have 2048 byte blocks).
              For this utility the maximum size of each individual  IO  operation  is  BS  *  BPT
              bytes.

       cdbsz={6|10|12|16}
              size of SCSI READ and/or WRITE commands issued on sg device names (or block devices
              when 'iflag=sgio' and/or 'oflag=sgio' is given).  Default is 10 byte  SCSI  command
              blocks  (unless calculations indicate that a 4 byte block number may be exceeded or
              BPT is greater than 16 bits (65535), in which case it  defaults  to  16  byte  SCSI
              commands).

       cdl=CDL
              allows  setting  of  command  duration  limits. CDL is either a single value or two
              values separated by a comma. If one value is given, it applies to  both  IFILE  and
              OFILE  (if  they  are  pass-through  devices).  If  two values are given, the first
              applies to IFILE while the second applies to OFILE. The value may be from  0  to  7
              where  0  is  the  default  and means there are no command duration limits. Command
              duration limits are only supported  by  16  byte  READ  and  WRITE  commands  (plus
              READ(32),  WRITE(32)  and  the  WRITE  SCATTERED command, bit thay are used by this
              utility). If the cdbsz operand is not given and would have a value  less  than  16,
              then if CDL is greater than 0, the cdbsz is increased to 16.
              Command duration limits can be accesses and changed in the Command duration limit A
              and B mode pages, plus the Command duration limit  T2A  and  T2B  mode  pages.  The
              sdparm utility may be used to access and change these mode pages.

       coe={0|1|2|3}
              set  to  1  or  more  for  continue  on error ('coe'). Only applies to errors on sg
              devices or block devices with the 'sgio' flag set. Thus errors on other files  will
              stop  sg_dd.  Default  is 0 which implies stop on any error. See the 'coe' flag for
              more information.

       coe_limit=CL
              where CL is the maximum number of consecutive  bad  blocks  stepped  over  (due  to
              "coe>0")  on  reads  before  the  copy  terminates. This only applies when IFILE is
              accessed via the SG_IO ioctl. The default is 0 which is interpreted  as  no  limit.
              This option is meant to stop the copy soon after unrecorded media is detected while
              still offering "continue on error" capability.

       conv=sparse
              see the CONVERSIONS section below.

       count=COUNT
              copy COUNT blocks from IFILE to OFILE. Default is the minimum (of IFILE and  OFILE)
              number  of  blocks  that sg devices report from SCSI READ CAPACITY commands or that
              block devices (or their partitions) report. Normal files are not probed  for  their
              size.  If  skip=SKIP  or  seek=SEEK  are  given and the count is derived (i.e.  not
              explicitly given) then the derived count is scaled back so that the copy  will  not
              overrun  the  device. If the file name is a block device partition and COUNT is not
              given then the size of the partition rather than the size of the  whole  device  is
              used.  If  COUNT  is  not  given  (or count=-1) and cannot be derived then an error
              message is issued and no copy takes place.

       dio={0|1}
              default is 0 which selects indirect  (buffered)  IO  on  sg  devices.  Value  of  1
              attempts  direct  IO  which,  if not available, falls back to indirect IO and notes
              this at completion. If direct IO is selected and  /proc/scsi/sg/allow_dio  has  the
              value  of  0  then  a  warning is issued (and indirect IO is performed).  For finer
              grain control use 'iflag=dio' or 'oflag=dio'.

       ibs=BS if given must be the same as BS given to 'bs=' option.

       if=IFILE
              read from IFILE instead of stdin. If IFILE  is  '-'  then  stdin  is  read.  Starts
              reading at the beginning of IFILE unless SKIP is given.

       iflag=FLAGS
              where  FLAGS  is a comma separated list of one or more flags outlined below.  These
              flags are associated with IFILE and are ignored when IFILE is stdin.

       obs=BS if given must be the same as BS given to 'bs=' option.

       odir={0|1}
              when set to one opens block devices (e.g. /dev/sda) with the  O_DIRECT  flag.  User
              memory  buffers  are  aligned to the page size when set. The default is 0 (i.e. the
              O_DIRECT flag is not used). Has no effect on sg, normal or raw files.  If  blk_sgio
              is also set then both are honoured: block devices are opened with the O_DIRECT flag
              and SCSI commands are issued via the SG_IO ioctl.

       of=OFILE
              write to OFILE instead of stdout. If OFILE is '-' then writes to stdout.  If  OFILE
              is /dev/null then no actual writes are performed.  If OFILE is '.' (period) then it
              is treated the same way as /dev/null (this  is  a  shorthand  notation).  If  OFILE
              exists then it is _not_ truncated; it is overwritten from the start of OFILE unless
              'oflag=append' or SEEK is given.

       of2=OFILE2
              write output to OFILE2. The default action is not to do this additional write (i.e.
              when  this  option  is  not given). OFILE2 is assumed to be a normal file or a fifo
              (i.e. a named pipe). OFILE2 is opened for writing, created if necessary, and closed
              at  the  end  of  the  transfer.  If  OFILE2 is a fifo (named pipe) then some other
              command should be consuming  that  data  (e.g.  'md5sum  OFILE2'),  otherwise  this
              utility will block.

       oflag=FLAGS
              where  FLAGS  is a comma separated list of one or more flags outlined below.  These
              flags are associated with OFILE and  are  ignored  when  OFILE  is  /dev/null,  '.'
              (period), or stdout.

       retries=RETR
              sometimes  retries  at  the  host are useful, for example when there is a transport
              error. When RETR is greater than zero then SCSI READs and  WRITEs  are  retried  on
              error, RETR times. Default value is zero.

       seek=SEEK
              start  writing  SEEK  bs-sized  blocks from the start of OFILE.  Default is block 0
              (i.e. start of file).

       skip=SKIP
              start reading SKIP bs-sized blocks from the start of IFILE.   Default  is  block  0
              (i.e. start of file).

       sync={0|1}
              when  1,  does  SYNCHRONIZE CACHE command on OFILE at the end of the transfer. Only
              active when OFILE is a sg device file name or a block device  and  'blk_sgio=1'  is
              given.

       time={0|1}[,TO]
              when  1, times transfer and does throughput calculation, outputting the results (to
              stderr) at completion. When 0 (default) doesn't perform timing.
              If that value is followed by a comma, then TO is the command timeout in seconds for
              SCSI  READ,  WRITE  or  VERIFY  commands issued by this utility.  The default is 60
              seconds.

       verbose=VERB
              as VERB increases so does the amount of debug output sent to stderr.  Default value
              is  zero  which  yields  the  minimum amount of debug output.  A value of 1 reports
              extra information that is not repetitive. A value 2 reports cdbs and responses  for
              SCSI  commands  that  are  not  repetitive  (i.e. other that READ and WRITE). Error
              processing is not considered repetitive. Values of 3 and 4  yield  output  for  all
              SCSI  commands (and Unix read() and write() calls) so there can be a lot of output.
              This only occurs  for  scsi  generic  (sg)  devices  and  block  devices  when  the
              'blk_sgio=1' option is set.

       -d, --dry-run
              does  all  the command line parsing and preparation but bypasses the actual copy or
              read. That preparation may include  opening  IFILE  or  OFILE  to  determine  their
              lengths.  This  option may be useful for testing the syntax of complex command line
              invocations in advance of executing them.

       -h, --help
              outputs usage message and exits.

       -p, --progress
              this option causes a progress report to be output every two minutes until the  copy
              is  complete.  After  the  copy  is  complete a line with "completed" is printed to
              distinguish the final report from the prior progress reports.  When used twice  the
              progress report is every minute, when used three times the progress report is every
              30 seconds.

       -v, --verbose
              when used once, this is equivalent to verbose=1. When used twice (e.g. "-vv")  this
              is equivalent to verbose=2, etc.

       -x, --verify
              do a verify operation (like Unix command cmp(1)) rather than a copy. Cannot be used
              with "oflag=sparse". of=OFILE must be given and OFILE must be an  sg  device  or  a
              block  device  with  "oflag=sgio" also given. Uses the SCSI VERIFY command with the
              BYTCHK field set to 1. The VERIFY command is used instead of WRITE when this option
              is  given.  There  is  no  VERIFY(6)  command. Stops on the first miscompare unless
              oflag=coe is given.

       -V, --version
              outputs version number information and exits.

CONVERSIONS

       One or more conversions can be given to the "conv=" option. If more  than  one  is  given,
       they  should  be  comma  separated.  sg_dd does not perform the traditional dd conversions
       (e.g. ASCII to EBCDIC). Recently added conversions overlap somewhat with the flags so some
       conversions are now supported by sg_dd.

       nocreat
              this  conversion  has the same effect as "oflag=nocreat", namely: OFILE must exist,
              it will not be created.

       noerror
              this conversion is very close to "iflag=coe" and is treated as such. See the  "coe"
              flag. Note that an error on OFILE will stop the copy.

       notrunc
              this conversion is accepted for compatibility with dd and ignored since the default
              action of this utility is not to truncate OFILE.

       null   has no affect, just a placeholder.

       sparse FreeBSD supports "conv=sparse" so the same  syntax  is  supported  in  sg_dd.   See
              "sparse" in the FLAGS sections for more information.

       sync   is  ignored  by  sg_dd. With dd it means supply zero fill (rather than skip) and is
              typically used like this "conv=noerror,sync" to  have  the  same  functionality  as
              sg_dd's "iflag=coe".

FLAGS

       Here is a list of flags and their meanings:

       00     this  flag is only active with iflag= and when given replaces if=IFILE. If both are
              given an error is generated. The input will be a stream of zeros, similar to  using
              "if=/dev/zero" alone (but a little quicker).

       append causes  the  O_APPEND flag to be added to the open of OFILE. For regular files this
              will lead to data appended to the end of any existing data. Cannot be used together
              with  the  seek=SEEK option as they conflict. The default action of this utility is
              to overwrite any existing data from the beginning of the file or, if SEEK is given,
              starting  at  block SEEK. Note that attempting to 'append' to a device file (e.g. a
              disk) will usually be ignored or may cause an error to be reported.

       coe    continue on error. Only active for sg devices  and  block  devices  that  have  the
              'sgio'  flag  set.  'iflag=coe oflag=coe' and 'coe=1' are equivalent. Use this flag
              twice (e.g. 'iflag=coe,coe') to have the same action as  the  'coe=2'.   A  medium,
              hardware  or  blank  check error while reading will re-read blocks prior to the bad
              block, then try to recover the bad  block,  supplying  zeros  if  that  fails,  and
              finally  re-read  the blocks after the bad block. A medium, hardware or blank check
              error while writing is noted and ignored. A miscompare sense key  during  a  VERIFY
              command  (i.e.  --verify given) is noted and ignored when 'oflag=coe'. The recovery
              of the bad block when reading uses the SCSI READ LONG command if 'coe' given  twice
              or  more  (also  with the command line option 'coe=2'). Further, the READ LONG will
              set its CORRCT bit if 'coe' given thrice. SCSI  disks  may  automatically  try  and
              remap  faulty  sectors (see the AWRE and ARRE in the read write error recovery mode
              page (the sdparm utility can access and possibly change these attributes)).  Errors
              occurring  on other files types will stop sg_dd. Error messages are sent to stderr.
              This flag is similar to 'conv=noerror,sync' in the dd(1) utility.  See  note  about
              READ LONG below.

       dio    request  the  sg device node associated with this flag does direct IO. If direct IO
              is not available, falls back to indirect IO  and  notes  this  at  completion.   If
              direct IO is selected and /proc/scsi/sg/allow_dio has the value of 0 then a warning
              is issued (and indirect IO is performed).

       direct causes the O_DIRECT flag to be added to the open of IFILE and/or OFILE.  This  flag
              requires  some memory alignment on IO. Hence user memory buffers are aligned to the
              page size. Has no effect on  sg,  normal  or  raw  files.  If  'iflag=sgio'  and/or
              'oflag=sgio'  is also set then both are honoured: block devices are opened with the
              O_DIRECT flag and SCSI commands are issued via the SG_IO ioctl.

       dpo    set the DPO bit (disable page out) in SCSI READ and WRITE commands.  Not  supported
              for  6  byte  cdb variants of READ and WRITE. Indicates that data is unlikely to be
              required to stay in device (e.g. disk) cache. May speed media copy and/or  cause  a
              media copy to have less impact on other device users.

       dsync  causes  the  O_SYNC  flag to be added to the open of IFILE and/or OFILE. The 'd' is
              prepended to lower confusion with the 'sync=0|1' option which  has  another  action
              (i.e. a synchronisation to media at the end of the transfer).

       excl   causes the O_EXCL flag to be added to the open of IFILE and/or OFILE.

       ff     this  flag is only active with iflag= and when given replaces if=IFILE. If both are
              given an error is generated. The input will be a stream of 0xff bytes (or all  bits
              set).

       flock  after  opening  the associated file (i.e. IFILE and/or OFILE) an attempt is made to
              get an advisory exclusive lock with the flock() system call.  The  flock  arguments
              are "FLOCK_EX | FLOCK_NB" which will cause the lock to be taken if available else a
              "temporarily unavailable" error is generated. An exit status of 90 is  produced  in
              the latter case and no copy is done.

       fua    causes  the  FUA  (force  unit  access)  bit  to  be  set in SCSI READ and/or WRITE
              commands. This only has an effect with sg devices or block devices  that  have  the
              'sgio'  flag  set.  The  6 byte variants of the SCSI READ and WRITE commands do not
              support the FUA bit.

       nocache
              use posix_fadvise() to advise corresponding file there is no need to fill the  file
              buffer with recently read or written blocks.

       nocreat
              this flag is only active in oflag=FLAGS. If present then OFILE will be opened if it
              exists. If OFILE doesn't exist then an error is  generated.  Without  this  flag  a
              regular  (empty) file named OFILE will be created (and then filled). For production
              quality scripts where OFILE is  a  device  node  (e.g.  '/dev/sdc')  this  flag  is
              recommended.   It  guards  against the remote possibility of 'dev/sdc' disappearing
              temporarily (e.g. a USB memory key removed)  resulting  in  a  large  regular  file
              called '/dev/sdc' being created.

       null   has no affect, just a placeholder.

       random this  flag is only active with iflag= and when given replaces if=IFILE. If both are
              given an error is generated. The input will be a stream of pseudo random bytes. The
              Linux getrandom(2) system call is used to create a seed and thereadter mrand48_r(3)
              is used to generate a pseudo random sequence, 4 bytes at a time. The quality of the
              randomness can be viewed with the ent(1) utility. This is not a high quality random
              number generator, it is built for speed, not quality. One application  is  checking
              the correctness of the copy and verify operations of this utility.

       sgio   causes  block  devices to be accessed via the SG_IO ioctl rather than standard UNIX
              read() and write() commands. When the SG_IO ioctl is used the SCSI READ  and  WRITE
              commands  are  used  directly  to move data. sg devices always use the SG_IO ioctl.
              This  flag  offers  finer  grain  control  compared  to  the  otherwise   identical
              'blk_sgio=1' option.

       sparse after  each  BS  * BPT byte segment is read from the input, it is checked for being
              all zeros. If so, nothing is written to the output file unless  this  is  the  last
              segment  of the transfer. This flag is only active with the oflag option. It cannot
              be used when the output is not seekable (e.g. stdout). It is ignored if the  output
              file  is  /dev/null  .   Note  that this utility does not remove the OFILE prior to
              starting to write to it. Hence it may be advantageous to manually remove the  OFILE
              if  it  is large prior to using oflag=sparse. The last segment is always written so
              regular files will show the same length and so programs  like  md5sum  and  sha1sum
              will  generate  the  same value regardless of whether oflag=sparse is given or not.
              This option may be used when the OFILE is a raw device but is probably only  useful
              if the device is known to contain zeros (e.g. a SCSI disk after a FORMAT command).

RETIRED OPTIONS

       Here are some retired options that are still present:

       append=0 | 1
              when  set,  equivalent to 'oflag=append'. When clear the action is to overwrite the
              existing file (if it exists); this is the default.  See the 'append' flag.

       fua=0 | 1 | 2 | 3
              force unit access bit. When 3, fua is set on both IFILE and OFILE; when 2,  fua  is
              set  on  IFILE;,  when  1, fua is set on OFILE; when 0 (default), fua is cleared on
              both. See the 'fua' flag.

NOTES

       Block  devices  (e.g.  /dev/sda  and  /dev/hda)  can  be  given  for  IFILE.   If  neither
       '-iflag=direct',  'iflag=sgio'  nor  'blk_sgio=1'  is given then normal block IO involving
       buffering and caching is performed. If only '-iflag=direct' is given  then  the  buffering
       and  caching  is  bypassed  (this  is  applicable to both SCSI devices and ATA disks).  If
       'iflag=sgio' or 'blk_sgio=1' is given then the SG_IO ioctl  is  used  on  the  given  file
       causing  SCSI commands to be sent to the device and that also bypasses most of the actions
       performed by the block layer (this is only applicable to SCSI devices, not ATA disks). The
       same applies for block devices given for OFILE.

       Various  numeric  arguments (e.g. SKIP) may include multiplicative suffixes or be given in
       hexadecimal. See the "NUMERIC ARGUMENTS" section in the sg3_utils(8) man page.

       The COUNT, SKIP and SEEK arguments can take 64 bit values (i.e. very big  numbers).  Other
       values are limited to what can fit in a signed 32 bit number.

       Data usually gets to the user space in a 2 stage process: first the SCSI adapter DMAs into
       kernel buffers and then the sg driver copies this data into user memory (write  operations
       reverse  this  sequence).   This  is  called  "indirect IO" and there is a 'dio' option to
       select "direct IO" which will DMA directly into user memory. Due to  some  issues  "direct
       IO"  is disabled in the sg driver and needs a configuration change to activate it. This is
       typically done with 'echo 1 > /proc/scsi/sg/allow_dio'.

       All informative, warning and error output is sent to stderr so that dd's output  file  can
       be stdout and remain unpolluted. If no options are given, then the usage message is output
       and nothing else happens.

       Even if READ LONG succeeds on a "bad" block  when  'coe=2'  (or  'coe=3')  is  given,  the
       recovered  data  may not be useful. There are no guarantees that the user data will appear
       "as is" in the first 512 bytes.

       A raw device must be bound to a block device prior to using sg_dd.  See  raw(8)  for  more
       information  about  binding  raw  devices. To be safe, the sg device mapping to SCSI block
       devices should be checked with 'cat /proc/scsi/scsi', or sg_map before use.

       Disk partition information can often be found with fdisk(8) [the "-ul" argument is  useful
       in this respect].

       For  sg devices (and block devices when blk_sgio=1 is given) this utility issues SCSI READ
       and WRITE (SBC) commands which are appropriate for disks and reading from CD/DVD/HD-DVD/BD
       drives. Those commands are not formatted correctly for tape devices so sg_dd should not be
       used on tape devices. If the largest block address of the requested transfer exceeds a  32
       bit  block  number (i.e 0xffff) then a warning is issued and the sg device is accessed via
       SCSI READ(16) and WRITE(16) commands.

       The attributes of a block device (partition) are ignored when 'blk_sgio=1' is used.  Hence
       the whole device is read (rather than just the second partition) by this invocation:

          sg_dd if=/dev/sdb2 blk_sgio=1 of=t bs=512

EXAMPLES

       Looks quite similar in usage to dd:

          sg_dd if=/dev/sg0 of=t bs=512 count=1MB

       This  will  copy 1 million 512 byte blocks from the device associated with /dev/sg0 (which
       should have 512 byte blocks) to a file called t.  Assuming /dev/sda and /dev/sg0  are  the
       same device then the above is equivalent to:

          dd if=/dev/sda iflag=direct of=t bs=512 count=1000000

       although  dd's  speed may improve if bs was larger and count was suitably reduced. The use
       of the 'iflag=direct' option bypasses the buffering and caching that is usually done on  a
       block device.

       Using a raw device to do something similar on a ATA disk:

          raw /dev/raw/raw1 /dev/hda
          sg_dd if=/dev/raw/raw1 of=t bs=512 count=1MB

       To copy a SCSI disk partition to an ATA disk partition:

          raw /dev/raw/raw2 /dev/hda3
          sg_dd if=/dev/sg0 skip=10123456 of=/dev/raw/raw2 bs=512

       This  assumes  a valid partition is found on the SCSI disk at the given skip block address
       (past the 5 GB point of that disk) and that the partition goes to  the  end  of  the  SCSI
       disk.  An  explicit count is probably a safer option. The partition is copied to /dev/hda3
       which is an offset into the ATA disk /dev/hda . The  exact  number  of  blocks  read  from
       /dev/sg0 are written to /dev/hda (i.e. no padding).

       To time a streaming read of the first 1 GB (2 ** 30 bytes) on a disk this utility could be
       used:

          sg_dd if=/dev/sg0 of=/dev/null bs=512 count=2m time=1

       On completion this will output a line like: "time to transfer  data  was  18.779506  secs,
       57.18 MB/sec". The "MB/sec" in this case is 1,000,000 bytes per second.

       The  'of2='  option  can  be  used to copy data and take a md5sum of it without needing to
       re-read the data:

         mkfifo fif
         md5sum fif &
         sg_dd if=/dev/sg3 iflag=coe of=sg3.img oflag=sparse of2=fif bs=512

       This will image /dev/sg3 (e.g. an unmounted disk) and place the contents in  the  (sparse)
       file  sg3.img  .  Without re-reading the data it will also perform a md5sum calculation on
       the image.

SIGNALS

       The signal handling has been borrowed from dd: SIGINT,  SIGQUIT  and  SIGPIPE  output  the
       number  of  remaining  blocks to be transferred and the records in + out counts; then they
       have their default action.  SIGUSR1 causes the same information to be output yet the  copy
       continues.  All output caused by signals is sent to stderr.

EXIT STATUS

       The  exit  status  of sg_dd is 0 when it is successful. Otherwise see the sg3_utils(8) man
       page. Since this utility works at a higher level than individual commands, and  there  are
       'coe'  and  'retries'  flags,  individual SCSI command failures do not necessary cause the
       process to exit.

       An additional exit status of 90 is generated if the flock flag is  given  and  some  other
       process holds the advisory exclusive lock.

AUTHORS

       Written by Douglas Gilbert and Peter Allworth.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to <dgilbert at interlog dot com>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2000-2021 Douglas Gilbert
       This  software  is distributed under the GPL version 2. There is NO warranty; not even for
       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO

       cmp(1)

       There is a web page discussing sg_dd at http://sg.danny.cz/sg/sg_dd.html

       A POSIX threads version of this utility called sgp_dd is in the sg3_utils package. Another
       version from that package is called sgm_dd and it uses memory mapped IO to speed transfers
       from sg devices.

       The lmbench package contains lmdd which is also interesting. For moving data to  and  from
       tapes see dt which is found at http://www.scsifaq.org/RMiller_Tools/index.html

       To  change  mode  parameters  that  effect  a SCSI device's caching and error recovery see
       sdparm(sdparm)

       To verify the data on the media or to verify it against some other copy of  the  data  see
       sg_verify(sg3_utils)

       See also raw(8), dd(1), ddrescue(GNU), ddpt