* SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review
@ 2004-10-26 18:29 Matt Domsch
2004-10-26 19:49 ` Christoph Hellwig
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Matt Domsch @ 2004-10-26 18:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: linux-scsi
FYI.
----- Forwarded message from Arnold Jones <td@snia.org> -----
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 11:27:28 -0400
From: Arnold Jones <td@snia.org>
To: members@snia.org
SNIA Members,
** PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO YOUR ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT **
The IP Storage Technical Work Group(TWG) has created and reviewed the
iSCSI Management API (IMA) Specification and would like review
feedback from a wider community. The iSCSI Management API is a C
language interface library which allows clients to manage both iSCSI
HBAs and iSCSI software initiators in a host system. It provides APIs
for the discovery and management of iSCSI initiators. In addition, it
provides APIs to discover iSCSI targets and manage the relationships
of iSCSI initiators with iSCSI targets.
The DRAFT document is available at:
http://www.snia.org/tech_activities/publicreview/
This public review ends 11/30/2004. Please send comments to the IP
Storage TWG snia-ips@snia.org.
NOTE: This review is not limited to SNIA Members and is open to the
general public, therefore feel free forward this message to anyone
outside of the SNIA.
If you have any questions please contact me at td@snia.org
Thanks ...
- Arnold
---
Arnold Jones
Technical Director
Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA)
td@snia.org
407-679-8232
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Matt Domsch
Sr. Software Engineer, Lead Engineer
Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review
2004-10-26 18:29 SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review Matt Domsch
@ 2004-10-26 19:49 ` Christoph Hellwig
2004-10-26 19:59 ` David Wysochanski
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Hellwig @ 2004-10-26 19:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Matt Domsch; +Cc: linux-scsi
On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 01:29:14PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
> FYI.
It has the usual SNIA spec quality - aka totally useless.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review
2004-10-26 19:49 ` Christoph Hellwig
@ 2004-10-26 19:59 ` David Wysochanski
2004-10-26 20:23 ` Christoph Hellwig
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: David Wysochanski @ 2004-10-26 19:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Christoph Hellwig; +Cc: Matt Domsch, linux-scsi
Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 01:29:14PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
> > FYI.
>
> It has the usual SNIA spec quality - aka totally useless.
>
What specifically is so bad to describe it as totally useless?
(Note that this API isn't kernel related.)
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review
2004-10-26 19:59 ` David Wysochanski
@ 2004-10-26 20:23 ` Christoph Hellwig
2004-10-26 21:04 ` David Wysochanski
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Hellwig @ 2004-10-26 20:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: David Wysochanski; +Cc: Christoph Hellwig, Matt Domsch, linux-scsi
On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 03:59:11PM -0400, David Wysochanski wrote:
> Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> >On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 01:29:14PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
> > > FYI.
> >
> >It has the usual SNIA spec quality - aka totally useless.
> >
>
> What specifically is so bad to describe it as totally useless?
it throws far too much things together, own type and object system,
functions to deal with firmware. there's ill suited abstractions like
the phba, etc..
as I said it's the usual SNIA design by commitee mess.
> (Note that this API isn't kernel related.)
actual it is - as most of the calls end up in an device driver,
or because the API is totally messed up with networking bits the
networking layer.
to take a very concrete example:
IMA_SetSubnetMask (sets the subnet mask for a specified network port)
doesn't make any sense at all in Linux with a software iscsi implementation
as IP addresses and thus netmasks aren't bound to network interfaces at all.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review
2004-10-26 20:23 ` Christoph Hellwig
@ 2004-10-26 21:04 ` David Wysochanski
2004-10-26 21:07 ` Christoph Hellwig
0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: David Wysochanski @ 2004-10-26 21:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Christoph Hellwig; +Cc: Matt Domsch, linux-scsi
Thanks for taking the time to review and be candid. More comments
below.
Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 03:59:11PM -0400, David Wysochanski wrote:
> > Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > >On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 01:29:14PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
> > > > FYI.
> > >
> > >It has the usual SNIA spec quality - aka totally useless.
> > >
> >
> > What specifically is so bad to describe it as totally useless?
>
> it throws far too much things together, own type and object system,
> functions to deal with firmware. there's ill suited abstractions like
> the phba, etc..
>
Sounds like you don't like the modelling. Keep in mind that a
lot of this came out of the T11 HBA API (for Fibre Channel HBAs
and FC storage management). Thus, the "phba" idea really fits
the model well. If you're thinking about it from a software
only perspective, with standard ethernet NICs, it does look
a little strange.
> as I said it's the usual SNIA design by commitee mess.
>
> > (Note that this API isn't kernel related.)
>
> actual it is - as most of the calls end up in an device driver,
> or because the API is totally messed up with networking bits the
> networking layer.
>
> to take a very concrete example:
>
> IMA_SetSubnetMask (sets the subnet mask for a specified network port)
> doesn't make any sense at all in Linux with a software iscsi implementation
> as IP addresses and thus netmasks aren't bound to network interfaces at
> all.
>
Very good point.
I understand your concern, and I initially had similar ones.
For a software initiator, all of these networking type functions
will not be implemented -- the spec gives you an option to indicate
whether a particular implementation has the networking options.
I and a few others argued a while back these very things -- that
for a software initiator and typical ethernet NICs, the model didn't
fit as well, and things like the IP stuff should be left to the standard
mechanisms. As a result, the spec was adjusted a bit to accomodate
the software only case.
A while back I actually came up with a design for an IMA plugin
(the OS dependent part of IMA) to the linux-iscsi software initiator.
As I recall, very little of the plugin, if at all, needed an IOCTL
call to the iscsi driver, but most of it just interfaced with the
userspace stuff.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review
2004-10-26 21:04 ` David Wysochanski
@ 2004-10-26 21:07 ` Christoph Hellwig
0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Hellwig @ 2004-10-26 21:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: David Wysochanski; +Cc: Matt Domsch, linux-scsi
> >it throws far too much things together, own type and object system,
> >functions to deal with firmware. there's ill suited abstractions like
> >the phba, etc..
> >
> Sounds like you don't like the modelling. Keep in mind that a
> lot of this came out of the T11 HBA API (for Fibre Channel HBAs
> and FC storage management). Thus, the "phba" idea really fits
> the model well. If you're thinking about it from a software
> only perspective, with standard ethernet NICs, it does look
> a little strange.
If you browse the archives you'll find my opinion on the HBA API ;-)
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
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2004-10-26 18:29 SNIA iSCSI Management API Public Review Matt Domsch
2004-10-26 19:49 ` Christoph Hellwig
2004-10-26 19:59 ` David Wysochanski
2004-10-26 20:23 ` Christoph Hellwig
2004-10-26 21:04 ` David Wysochanski
2004-10-26 21:07 ` Christoph Hellwig
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