Skip to Main Content
IBM System Storage Ideas Portal


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM System Storage products. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas
  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

Status Not under consideration
Created by Guest
Created on Mar 11, 2016

Bring lin_tape source into the Linux kernel

The lin_tape drivers are causing us trouble either when the OS kernel is being updated, or if the drivers need an update.

Keeping a high patch level for security patches is very important on backup servers, since the backup servers generally have access to all the important and/or sensitive data in the organization. Therefore, it should be as easy as possible to cope with drivers for IBM tape units.

Why don't you simply make the lin_tape source part of the Linux kernel? Some divisions in IBM seem to have no problem upstreaming source code to open source projects. If the tape driver code were part of the main Linux kernel codebase, then IBMs customers wouldn't have to care at all about kernel/driver updates.

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Sep 15, 2017

    Note that this is not really a TSM problem, but if TSM development can convince lin_tape development to improve the situation that would be helpful.

    An alternative is to package the lin_tape driver with proper dkms support.

    This would eliminate all need of manually building/installing the kernel part of the lin_tape driver when the kernel is upgraded etc.

    The current situation of having to manually build the kernel parts is not satisfactory.