Ubuntu Manpage: sg_raw - send arbitrary SCSI command to a device

Provided by: sg3-utils_1.40-0ubuntu1_amd64

NAME

       sg_raw - send 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.
       If supported by the pass through, bidirectional commands may be sent (i.e. containing both
       data to be sent to the DEVICE and received from the DEVICE).

       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.

-R, --readonly
Open DEVICE read-only. The default (without this option) is to open it read-write.

-s, --send=SLEN
Read SLEN bytes of data, either from stdin or from a file, and send them to the
DEVICE.

-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. In the Linux series
       3 kernels, the bsg driver can handle longer CDBs, block devices (e.g.  /dev/sdc)  accessed
       via  the SG_IO ioctl cannot handle CDBs longer than 16 bytes, and the sg driver can handle
       longer CDBs from lk 3.17 .

       The CDB command name defined by T10 for the given CDB is shown if  the  '-vvv'  option  is
       given. The command line syntax still needs to be correct, so /dev/null may be used for the
       DEVICE since the CDB command name decoding is done before the DEVICE is checked.

EXAMPLES

       These examples, apart from the last one, use Linux device names. For suitable device names
       in other supported Operating Systems see the sg3_utils(8) man page.

       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.

       sg_raw --infile=urandom.bin --send=512 --request=512 --outfile=out.bin  "/dev/bsg/7:0:0:0"
       53 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00
              This  is a bidirectional XDWRITEREAD(10) command being sent via a Linux bsg device.
              Note that data is being read from "urandom.bin" and sent to the  device  (data-out)
              while  resulting  data  (data-in)  is  placed  in the "out.bin" file. Also note the
              length of both is 512 bytes which corresponds to the transfer length of  1  (block)
              in the cdb (i.e.  the second last byte).

       sg_raw.exe PhysicalDrive1 a1 0c 0e 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 00 00
              This  example  is from Windows and shows a ATA STANDBY IMMEDIATE command being sent
              to  PhysicalDrive1.  That  ATA  command  is   contained   within   the   SCSI   ATA
              PASS-THROUGH(12)  command  (see  the  SAT or SAT-2 standard at http://www.t10.org).
              Notice that the STANDBY IMMEDIATE command does not send or receive  any  additional
              data, however if it fails sense data should be returned and displayed.

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>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2001-2014 Ingo van Lil
       This software is distributed under the GPL version 2. There is NO warranty; not  even  for
       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.