[PATCH][RFC 22/23]: Documentation for iSCSI-SCST

Vladislav Bolkhovitin
2008-12-10T19:03:40Z

This patch contains documentation for iSCSI-SCST.

Signed-off-by: Vladislav Bolkhovitin <vst@vlnb.net>
---
Documentation/scst/README.iscsi | 127 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 127 insertions(+)

diff -uprN orig/linux-2.6.27/Documentation/scst/README.iscsi linux-2.6.27/Documentation/scst/README.iscsi
--- orig/linux-2.6.27/Documentation/scst/README.iscsi
+++ linux-2.6.27/Documentation/scst/README.iscsi
@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+iSCSI SCST target driver
+========================
+
+Version 1.0.1/0.4.16r155, XX XXXX 2008
+--------------------------------------
+
+This driver is a forked with all respects version of iSCSI Enterprise
+Target (IET) (http://iscsitarget.sourceforge.net/) with updates to work
+over SCST as well as with many improvements and bugfixes (see ChangeLog
+file). The reason of fork is that the necessary changes are intrusive
+and with the current IET merge policy, where only simple bugfix-like
+patches, which doesn't touch the core code, could be merged, it is very
+unlikely that they will be merged in the main IET trunk.
+
+To let it be installed and work at the same host together with IET
+simultaneously all the driver's modules and files were renamed:
+
+ * ietd.conf -> iscsi-scstd.conf
+ * ietadm -> iscsi-scst-adm
+ * ietd -> iscsi-scstd
+ * iscsi-target -> iscsi-scst
+ * iscsi-target.ko -> iscsi-scst.ko
+
+To use full power of TCP zero-copy transmit functions, especially
+dealing with user space supplied via scst_user module memory, iSCSI-SCST
+needs to be notified when Linux networking finished data transmission.
+For that you should enable CONFIG_TCP_ZERO_COPY_TRANSFER_COMPLETION_NOTIFICATION
+kernel config option. This is highly recommended, but not required. Basically,
+you should consider usage of this option as some optimization, which IET
+doesn't have, so if you don't use it, you will just revert to the
+original IET behavior, when for data transmission:
+
+ - For in-kernel allocated memory (scst_vdisk and pass-through
+ handlers) usage of SGV cache on transmit path (READ-type commands)
+ will be disabled. The performance hit will be not big, but performance
+ will still remain better, than for IET, because SGV cache will remain
+ used on receive path while IET doesn't have such feature.
+
+ - For user space allocated memory (scst_user handler) all transmitted
+ data will be additionally copied into temporary TCP buffers. The
+ performance hit will be quite noticeable.
+
+Note, that if your network hardware does not support TX offload
+functions of has them disabled, then TCP zero-copy transmit functions on
+your system will not be used by Linux networking in any case, so
+put_page_callback patch will not be able to improve performance for you.
+You can check your network hardware offload capabilities by command
+"ethtool -k ethX", where X is the network device number. At least
+"tx-checksumming" and "scatter-gather" should be enabled.
+
+Usage
+-----
+
+ISCSI parameters like iSNS, CHAP and target parameters are configured in
+iscsi-scstd.conf. All LUN information is configured using the regular
+SCST interface. It is highly recommended to use scstadmin utility for
+that purpose. The LUN information in iscsi-scstd.conf will be ignored.
+This is because now responsibilities are divided (as it should be)
+between the target driver (iSCSI-SCST) and the SCST core as it logically
+should be: the target driver is responsible for handling targets and
+their parameters, SCST core is responsible for handling backstorage.
+
+If you need to configure different LUs for different targets you should
+create for each target group "Default_target_name", where "target_name"
+means name of the target, for example:
+"Default_iqn.2007-05.com.example:storage.disk1.sys1.xyz", and add there
+all necessary LUNs. Check SCST README file for details.
+
+Check SCST README file how to tune for the best performance.
+
+If under high load you experience I/O stalls or see in the kernel log
+abort or reset messages, then try to reduce QueuedCommands parameter in
+iscsi-scstd.conf file for the corresponding target to some lower value,
+like 8 (default is 32). See also SCST README file for more details about
+that issue.
+
+CAUTION: Working of target and initiator on the same host isn't
+======== supported. See SCST README file for details.
+
+
+Performance advices
+-------------------
+
+1. If you use Windows XP or Windows 2003+ as initiators, you should
+consider to decrease TcpAckFrequency parameter to 1. See
+http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890/ or google for "TcpAckFrequency"
+for more details.
+
+
+Compilation options
+-------------------
+
+There are the following compilation options, that could be commented
+in/out in the kernel's module Makefile:
+
+ - CONFIG_SCST_DEBUG - turns on some debugging code, including some logging.
+ Makes the driver considerably bigger and slower, producing large amount of
+ log data.
+
+ - CONFIG_SCST_TRACING - turns on ability to log events. Makes the driver
+ considerably bigger and leads to some performance loss.
+
+ - CONFIG_SCST_EXTRACHECKS - adds extra validity checks in the various places.
+
+ - CONFIG_SCST_ISCSI_DEBUG_DIGEST_FAILURES - simulates digest failures in
+ random places.
+
+
+Credits
+-------
+
+Thanks to:
+
+ * IET developers for IET
+
+ * Ming Zhang <blackmagic02881@gmail.com> for fixes
+
+ * Krzysztof Blaszkowski <kb@sysmikro.com.pl> for many fixes
+
+ * Alexey Kuznetsov <kuznet@ms2.inr.ac.ru> for comments and help in
+ debugging
+
+ * Tomasz Chmielewski <mangoo@wpkg.org> for testing and suggestions
+
+ * Bart Van Assche <bart.vanassche@gmail.com> for a lot of help
+