Hi, Here are few thoughts. On sourceforge there is a hbaapi project. http://sourceforge.net/projects/hbaapi/ This is old project. Is it possible to update that one or create a new project for hbaapi? I believe hbaapi support FC-HBA version 1 and 2. Now we are currently working on SM-HBA. This is based on FC-HBA. Currently this include SAS. Once SM-HBA became standard, we can add SM-HBA to existing project. If we have a open source project and supported by major HBA vendors, we can build tools(open source) on this project. That will help bigger community. Here is the SN Ping and Traceroute project proposal. This is one example. http://www.t11.org/ftp/t11/admin/project_proposals/05-225v0.pdf http://www.t11.org/ftp/t11/admin/project_proposals/05-177v1.txt Thanks, -Vinod Bhat -----Original Message----- From: linux-scsi-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:linux-scsi-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Christoph Hellwig Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 11:40 AM To: linux-scsi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Fibre Channel state of the union With the upcoming merge of the current SCSI development branch (probably after the 2.6.12 release), Linux will have more advanced Fibre Channel support than any currently available operating system. The new Fibre Channel (FC) transport class offers two major advantages over traditional standalone drivers: (1) It provides an easy to use library to deal with most aspects of FC remote port management and its integration into SAM and the Linux SCSI layer. - a remote port object that sits between the host and the target in the Linux SCSI layer object model - support for remote port based LUN scanning, including live rescanning on fabric topology changes and stable remove port to SCSI target id mappings - a queue freeze facility to handle temporary cable unplugs without generating I/O errors (2) a common userspace interface to transport specific and management information in sysfs. The information provided is based on a sane subset of the SNIA HBA API specification. This reduces the burden of writing and maintaining an FC HBA driver substantially, for example the recent conversion of the qla2xxx driver to use these facilities removes over 3000 lines of code (about 1/5 of the overall driver size) while adding new features and a userspace management interface. The FC transport class thus allows hardware vendors to concentrate on interfacing with the hardware and support their unique features, freeing them from the burden of reimplementing basic infrastructure in every driver and designing ad hoc management interfaces. We now have two drivers supporting this infrastructure fully: - qla2xxx for Qlogic 2100/2200/23xx HBAs - lpfc for all Emulex SLI2 HBAs Two drivers for modern hardware don't fully use this infrastructure yet, but we are working with the maintainers and expect the drivers to be updated to take advantage of the new FC transport class soon. - zfcp for the Fibre Channel attachment on the IBM zSeries mainframes - mptfusion for the LSI "Fusion" 909/919(X)/929(X) HBAs Still missing is an Open Source tool application utilizing our APIs. The currently available proprietary applications are inflexible, available only for very few of the architectures supported by Linux, and tied to specific HBAs. The common API and hardware independence provide a great opportunity for the Hardware vendors to collaborate on a single Open Source management application and leverage the cost savings of an open development method. We are also looking forward to a bridge from the Linux management interfaces to the "industry-standard" SNIA HBA API, allowing various management applications to work out of the box with our stack. To make these new features available to Enterprise users and reduce the fragmentation in driver and management space we will be working with the major players in the Storage Industry and the Linux Distribution vendors to support and certify this stack in the near future. Special thanks go to Emulex and James Smart in particular for implementing the majority of the new Fibre Channel transport class. We also want to thank Andrew Vasquez at Qlogic for providing valuable input on the transport class design and for updating the qla2xx driver to use the new facilities quickly. The Linux SCSI community plans to provide a similar framework for Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) transports in the near future. Thanks to Arjan van de Ven, Peter Jones, Randy Dunlap, Rik van Riel, Nikita Danilov and James Bottomley for reviewing this document and suggesting various improvements. - : send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html - : send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
