The LIO and SCST SCSI target subsystems consist of the following components: * A core that processes SCSI commands and that provides common functionality like persistent reservations, LUN masking and an interface that allows configuration from user space. * Device handlers that allow this core to access SCSI devices, block devices and files uniformly as SCSI devices. * Target drivers that implement a storage protocol (iSCSI, FC, SRP, iSER, FCoE, ...) and that realize the SCSI request and response communication between the target system and an initiator system. A significant amount of code is shared between several LIO target drivers and the SCST target drivers that implement the same storage protocol. Since there are two sets of these drivers this means that each set has to be maintained, extended and tested separately. This means a lot of redundant work. The main difference between these two sets of drivers is the interface between the target drivers and the SCSI target core. Hence the proposal to discuss the unification of the API between SCSI target core and SCSI target drivers. Implementing a single unified API would have the following advantages: * A single set of target drivers works for both projects which means a reduction of the maintenance effort for those who maintain target drivers for target driver developers and target driver users. * This would increase the size of the user base for the unified target drivers. * This would reduce the workload for the storage target maintainers. * This would motivate the SCST target driver maintainers to contribute to the upstream target drivers and to bring the upstream SRP and FCoE target drivers to the same feature and stability level as their SCST counterparts. In other words, the LIO users would also benefit from this work. * This effort would also help SCST users by ensuring that all latest target driver features are also available to SCST users. Some time ago (but no longer today) the LIO QLogic target driver was ahead of the SCST QLogic target driver. This motivated an SCST user to port the LIO QLogic target driver to SCST. See also Greg Wettstein, New release of SCST/Qlogic target interface driver, linux-scsi, April 2014, http://marc.info/?l=linux-scsi&m=139649571807085). During the first phase of this initiative the focus will be on the QLogic FC, SRP and FCoE target drivers since a significant part of the code of these drivers is shared between the two target frameworks. For those who are not following the SCST project: I'm maintaining the SCST SRP and FCoE target drivers. Nic, in case it was not yet clear, you would be more than welcome during this session :-) Bart. -- To unsubscribe from this list: 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
