Greetings All! After months of discussion and anticipation, I am pleased to announce the latest stable release from the core-iscsi project sponsored by SBEi, Inc. The main goal behind this release is to encourage the adoption of RFC-3720 on Linux by abstracting away implementation dependant iSCSI Initiator stack complexity from configuration, management and general day-to-day administration involved with a iSCSI SAN for the average Linux/iSCSI user. The end result is a set of stable and accepted configuration files and management scripts that allow multiple iSCSI stacks to be run, transparently to the end user. This is achieved by separating discussions into two major iSCSI 'building blocks' that each itself contain many smaller building blocks within. These are the core-iscsi-tools and core-iscsi-stack. Detailed discussion of both of these blocks are included inside of the release listed below. Also included is the core-iscsi ROADMAP that has been updated to reflect the major improvements/features since the project was first launched in April 2005 by PyX Technologies. Note that this release is a source release only, and binaries+specs are planned to be released in the upcoming weeks. Please see the INSTALL files included for more information: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/nab/iscsi-initiator-core/core-iscsi-v1.6.2.0.tar.bz2 http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/storage/iscsi/core-iscsi-tools-v3.0.tar.bz2 Please note that the Core-iSCSI configuration files & management scripts has been designed to be independent of the Core-iSCSI stack. Recently, interest has been shown for development to resume on core-iscsi so a combination of logical and portable scripts+files+tools and proven implementation+stack can be made available immediately to Linux 2.6 users. Now that this milestone has been reached, work can begin in preparation for the port of the tools package to open/iscsi. This is something that I have begun documenting, and as efforts continue to rise and OSS code appears, when in such time that open/iscsi is deemed stable for production use via core-iscsi validation scripts, preexisting core-iscsi users will be able to make this upgrade 'futureproof' to the iSCSI SAN admins of today and 2nd generation iSCSI designers and implementers of tomorrow. Note that core-iscsi-tools defines multiple network interconnects of IP based Storage to remote iSCSI Target Nodes presenting iSCSI Logical Units. Some of the number of configuration options core-iscsi-tools provides that are deployed and validated today involve running multiple concurrent connections across linear scalable ethernet ports on a wide assortment of hardware platforms and adapaters from a number of different vendors. For core-iscsi this involves running MC/S across multiple connection Linux/TCP sessions and single Linux/SCTP connection sessions to iSCSI Target Nodes. This also involves planning for iSCSI Extentions for RDMA (iSER) considerations for future hardware and software RCaPs. Some of the types of things that are involved are IQN naming, iSNS registration, iSCSI Target node discovery, iSCSI LUN management, and consistent filesystem mountpoints on boot are just some of the few. Also the ability to shutdown a system effectively with mounted and/or active iSCSI LUNs through core-iscsi scripts is something that is needed in real-world iSCSI deployments. Future releases of core-iscsi will also contain initrd images and instructions for true 'diskless' booting, as well as a 'LiveCD' concept of using existing OSS backup programs and allowing any machine to boot and pretty effortlessly backup it's local storage media to a iSCSI Logical Unit via a iSCSI Target Node within your iSCSI SAN. More of this is discussed in iSCSI Channel management HOWTO for those interested. The release can be located at the following locations, please check the Section 1 of the HOWTO for installation instruction. The core-iscsi manual pages initiator(5), initiator_auth(5), and iscsi_device_maps(5) are installed by default with core-iscsi tools, and detailed information on the configuration of core-iscsi is located in Section 2, and typical iSCSI usage scenarios are located in Section 3. Note that as with previous releases of core-iscsi, all configuration files are backwards compatible, and will not be overwritten during the installation process if they previously exist. And finally, in keeping with tradition of past core-iscsi releases, the release tarballs above where packaged on remote iSCSI LUNs provided by the release itself on an iSCSI Initiator Node (LinuxPPC 32-bit 2.6) connected to an iSCSI Target Node (AlphaLinux 64-bit 2.6). I hope this project will go a long way for Linux 2.6 and beyond, and most importantly, easy to use for ALL users on these next generation devices based on the Linux and other open platforms. Enjoy! -- Nicholas A. Bellinger <nab@xxxxxxxxxx> - : 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
