Re: [PATCH v2] RDMA/CMA: fix iWARP adapter TCP port space usage

Steve Wise
2010-06-23T18:20:40Z

Roland Dreier wrote:
> > iWARP is just another protocol on top of TCP - like iSCSI. There is
> > no good reason to invent another TCP port maintainer per TCP user
> > type trying to synchonize with the kernel if the resource is host
> > global and already maintained by the kernel.
>
> I think the counter-argument to this is than an iWARP offload NIC is an
> independent TCP stack and hence should not be tied into the host stack.
> It's interesting that you bring up iSCSI -- as I understand things,
> iSCSI offload HBAs are typically configured with their own IP, through a
> separate mechanism. (The port collision problem is not likely to be hit
> with iSCSI, since the HBA is an initiator and hence does only active
> connections, and a 4-tuple collision between connections to the iSCSI
> target is not likely and other host stack traffic is extremely unlikely)
>
>

Roland, do you think the iSCSI approach is a "good design" for iWARP
devices?