Re: [RFC] qla4xxx: TODO for re-submission

[Mike Christie <michaelc@cs.wisc.edu>]

Mike Christie wrote:
> Ravi Anand wrote:
>>> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006, Mike Christie wrote:
>>> Doug Maxey wrote:
>>>> 5) add the block layer code.
>>> Some related issues that we have discussed offlist about this and should
>>> probably be discussed here are:
>>>
>>> - Are we supposed to follow FC's lead and remove the devices (rport,
>>> session, target, scsi_device, etc) if the dev_loss_tmo fires. Currently
>>> for software iscsi, we leave the devices/session. This was to reduce
>>> memory allocations and because software iscsi has to basically poll the
>>> connection during connect as part of the relogin process. So unlike FC
>>> or hw iscsi, if we remove the devices/structs we have to end up
>>> rebuilding some of them right away anyways.
>>>
>>> Removing the devices has the benefit of simplifying the scsi/iscsi code.
>>>
>>> - Scanning. We currently do scanning for open-iscsi in userspace. For
>>> iscsi root this requires distro support. SUSE has it. Fedora is working
>>> on it. There is also Debian and Gentoo users or maintainers posting
>>> about working on it. For qla4xxx, we could stick the scanning in the
>>> kernel like FC and distros would not have to worry about it, but since
>>> they have to get this working for software iscsi do we just keep the
>>> scanning in userspace?
>> Our preference is also to have the scanning for all the HBA's which
>> does the discovery of the tgt's in the kernel space. This way we are
>> consistent with all the HBA's which does the port discovery like 
>> the FC HBA's. Our iSCSI HBA's is similar in that regard.
> 
> Yeah, but your HBA can also function in connection mode and just use
> open-iscsi's login code too. I am not saying that is that way to go. I
> am just saying that there are alternatives.
> 
>> As you have already stated, it simplies support from distro perspective 
>> as well.
>>
> 
> It does for qla4xxx, but I think you then have to go and fix it so
> iscsi_tcp and iscsi_iser sync up with userspace correctly if you convert
> them. Either that or we maintain two ways of scanning for iscsi drivers.
> For iscsi_tcp/iser we have some sync code to avoid the async scanning
> root disk problem, but that code is in userspace.


Oh yeah for install, do all your cards have the ability to be able to
set values like a discovery address from a bios or open firmware screen?
Is this ability on the card when you first get it or do you have to
download it or do you just have to download it for older cards?