1SG_RAW(8) SG3_UTILS SG_RAW(8)
2
6 sg_raw - send arbitrary SCSI command to a device
7
9 sg_raw [OPTIONS] DEVICE CDB0 CDB1 ...
10
12 This utility sends an arbitrary SCSI command (between 6 and 256 bytes)
13 to the DEVICE. There may be no associated data transfer; or data may be
14 read from a file and sent to the DEVICE; or data may be received from
15 the DEVICE and then displayed or written to a file. If supported by the
16 pass through, bidirectional commands may be sent (i.e. containing both
17 data to be sent to the DEVICE and received from the DEVICE).
18 The SCSI command may be between 6 and 256 bytes long. Each command byte
20 is specified in plain hex format (00..FF) without a prefix or suffix.
21 See EXAMPLES section below.
22 The commands pass through a generic SCSI interface which is implemented
24 for several operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD and Windows.
25
27 Arguments to long options are mandatory for short options as well.
28 -b, --binary
30 Dump data in binary form, even when writing to stdout.
31 -h, --help
33 Display usage information and exit.
34 -i, --infile=IFILE
36 Read data from IFILE instead of stdin. This option is ignored if
37 --send is not specified.
38 -k, --skip=LEN
40 Skip the first LEN bytes of the input file or stream. This
41 option is ignored if --send is not specified.
42 -n, --nosense
44 Don't display SCSI Sense information.
45 -o, --outfile=OFILE
47 Write data received from the DEVICE to OFILE. The data is writ‐
48 ten in binary. By default, data is dumped in hex format to std‐
49 out. If OFILE is '-' then data is dumped in binary to stdout.
50 This option is ignored if --request is not specified.
51 -r, --request=RLEN
53 Expect to receive up to RLEN bytes of data from the DEVICE.
54 RLEN may be suffixed with 'k' to use kilobytes (1024 bytes)
55 instead of bytes. RLEN is decimal unless it has a leading '0x'
56 or a trailing 'h'.
57 If RLEN is too small (i.e. either smaller than indicated by the
58 cdb (typically the "allocation length" field) and/or smaller
59 than the DEVICE tries to send back) then the HBA driver may com‐
60 plain. Making RLEN larger than required should cause no prob‐
61 lems. Most SCSI "data-in" commands return a data block that con‐
62 tains (in its early bytes) a length that the DEVICE would "like"
63 to send back if the "allocation length" field in the cdb is
64 large enough. In practice, the DEVICE will return no more bytes
65 than indicated in the "allocation length" field of the cdb.
66 -R, --readonly
68 Open DEVICE read-only. The default (without this option) is to
69 open it read-write.
70 -s, --send=SLEN
72 Read SLEN bytes of data, either from stdin or from a file, and
73 send them to the DEVICE. In the SCSI transport, SLEN becomes the
74 length (in bytes) of the "data-out" buffer. SLEN is decimal
75 unless it has a leading '0x' or a trailing 'h'.
76 It is the responsibility of the user to make sure that the
77 "data-out" length implied or stated in the cdb matches SLEN.
78 Note that some common SCSI commands such as WRITE(10) have a
79 "transfer length" field whose units are logical blocks (which
80 are often 512 bytes long).
81 -t, --timeout=SEC
83 Wait up to SEC seconds for command completion (default: 20).
84 Note that if a command times out the operating system may start
85 by aborting the command and if that is unsuccessful it may
86 attempt to reset the device.
87 -v, --verbose
89 Increase level of verbosity. Can be used multiple times.
90 -V, --version
92 Display version and license information and exit.
93
95 The sg_inq utility can be used to send an INQUIRY command to a device
96 to determine its peripheral device type (e.g. '1' for a streaming
97 device (tape drive)) which determines which SCSI command sets a device
98 should support (e.g. SPC and SSC). The sg_vpd utility probes the Vital
99 Product Pages of a devices which may contain useful information.
100 The ability to send more than a 16 byte CDB (in some cases 12 byte CDB)
102 may be restricted by the pass-through interface, the low level driver
103 or the transport. In the Linux series 3 kernels, the bsg driver can
104 handle longer CDBs, block devices (e.g. /dev/sdc) accessed via the
105 SG_IO ioctl cannot handle CDBs longer than 16 bytes, and the sg driver
106 can handle longer CDBs from lk 3.17 .
107 The CDB command name defined by T10 for the given CDB is shown if the
109 '-vv' option is given. The command line syntax still needs to be cor‐
110 rect, so /dev/null may be used for the DEVICE since the CDB command
111 name decoding is done before the DEVICE is checked.
112
114 These examples, apart from the last one, use Linux device names. For
115 suitable device names in other supported Operating Systems see the
116 sg3_utils(8) man page.
117 sg_raw /dev/scd0 1b 00 00 00 02 00
119 Eject the medium in CD drive /dev/scd0.
120 sg_raw -r 1k /dev/sg0 12 00 00 00 60 00
122 Perform an INQUIRY on /dev/sg0 and dump the response data (up to
123 1024 bytes) to stdout.
124 sg_raw -s 512 -i i512.bin /dev/sda 3b 02 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00
126 Showing an example of writing 512 bytes to a sector on a disk is
127 a little dangerous. Instead this example will read i512.bin
128 (assumed to be 512 bytes long) and use the SCSI WRITE BUFFER
129 command to send it to the "data" buffer (that is mode 2). This
130 is a safe operation.
131 sg_raw -r 512 -o o512.bin /dev/sda 3c 02 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00
133 This will use the SCSI READ BUFFER command to read 512 bytes
134 from the "data" buffer (i.e. mode 2) then write it to the
135 o512.bin file. When used in conjunction with the previous exam‐
136 ple, if both commands work then 'cmp i512.bin o512.bin' should
137 show a match.
138 sg_raw --infile=urandom.bin --send=512 --request=512 --outfile=out.bin
140 "/dev/bsg/7:0:0:0" 53 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00
141 This is a bidirectional XDWRITEREAD(10) command being sent via a
142 Linux bsg device. Note that data is being read from "uran‐
143 dom.bin" and sent to the device (data-out) while resulting data
144 (data-in) is placed in the "out.bin" file. Also note the length
145 of both is 512 bytes which corresponds to the transfer length of
146 1 (block) in the cdb (i.e. the second last byte).
147 sg_raw.exe PhysicalDrive1 a1 0c 0e 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 00 00
149 This example is from Windows and shows a ATA STANDBY IMMEDIATE
150 command being sent to PhysicalDrive1. That ATA command is con‐
151 tained within the SCSI ATA PASS-THROUGH(12) command (see the SAT
152 or SAT-2 standard at http://www.t10.org). Notice that the
153 STANDBY IMMEDIATE command does not send or receive any addi‐
154 tional data, however if it fails sense data should be returned
155 and displayed.
156
158 The exit status of sg_raw is 0 when it is successful. Otherwise see the
159 sg3_utils(8) man page.
160
162 Written by Ingo van Lil
163
165 Report bugs to <inguin at gmx dot de>.
166
168 Copyright © 2001-2015 Ingo van Lil
169 This software is distributed under the GPL version 2. There is NO war‐
170 ranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PUR‐
171 POSE.
172
174 sg_inq, sg_vpd, sg3_utils (sg3_utils), plscsi
175sg3_utils-1.42 November 2015 SG_RAW(8)