[Pkg-iscsi-maintainers] Bug#699240: open-iscsi: Broadcom Offload Engine is unusable because of missing iscsiuio daemon

Ritesh Raj Sarraf rrs at researchut.com
Wed Feb 13 13:21:32 UTC 2013


Yes. Offload is dependent on the hardware, something that I don't have
access to. With you assistance, we can improve the state in Debian.

On Tuesday 29 January 2013 06:09 PM, Rafal Ramocki wrote:
> I have iSCSI storage array, and dedicated to it broadcom interfaces with iSCSI Offload engine (BCM5709). After configuring open-iscsi to use offload engine (transport bnx2i) i have no connectivity.
> When I'm forcing to log in to target by iscsiadm -m node --login it hangs. I figured out that it is sendig by NETLINK command to 'iscsid', and iscsid is trying to communicate with kernel without success.
> Strace of iscsiadm shows:
>
> socket(PF_FILE, SOCK_STREAM, 0)         = 3
> connect(3, {sa_family=AF_FILE, path=@"ISCSIADM_ABSTRACT_NAMESPACE"}, 110) = 0
> write(...)
> recvfrom(
> (waiting and finnaly connection timed out)
>
> While 'iscsid -d8 -f'  shows:
>
> iscsid: Received iferror -19: No such device.
> iscsid: cannot make a connection to 10.2.90.69:3260 (-19,2)

Any clues on what interface was it configured here?

> iscsid: in ktransport_ep_disconnect
> iscsid: Connection-1:0 to [target: iqn.1992-04.com.emc:cx.ckm00122000265.a7, portal: 10.2.90.69,3260] through [iface: bnx2i.00:10:18:e6:c3:55] is shutdown.
> iscsid: mgmt_ipc_write_rsp: rsp to fd 5
> iscsid: thread 01ad1128 delete: state 3
> iscsid: thread 01ad1160 delete: state 0
> iscsid: destroying session

Looks liek it is named bnx2i. Can you confirm ?

>
> In dmesg I have only:
> [  858.845517] cnic: Broadcom NetXtreme II CNIC Driver cnic v2.5.7 (July 20, 2011)
> [  858.845570] bnx2 0000:01:00.0: peth0: Added CNIC device
> [  858.846906] bnx2 0000:01:00.1: eth1: Added CNIC device
> [  858.846943] bnx2 0000:04:00.0: eth2: Added CNIC device
> [  858.848267] bnx2 0000:04:00.1: eth3: Added CNIC device

Nope. The iface name is the regular conventional name.

> [  858.851317] Broadcom NetXtreme II iSCSI Driver bnx2i v2.7.0.3 (Jun 15, 2011)
> [  858.851359] iscsi: registered transport (bnx2i)
> [  858.851471] scsi6 : Broadcom Offload iSCSI Initiator
> [  858.851892] bnx2i [04:00.01]: ISCSI_INIT passed
> [  858.856678] scsi7 : Broadcom Offload iSCSI Initiator
> [  858.857106] bnx2i [04:00.00]: ISCSI_INIT passed
> [  858.864650] scsi8 : Broadcom Offload iSCSI Initiator
> [  858.864912] scsi9 : Broadcom Offload iSCSI Initiator
> [  858.865324] bnx2i [01:00.00]: ISCSI_INIT passed
>
> But no information about connecting to target. I use following configuration:
>
> # iscsiadm -m node -T iqn.1992-04.com.emc:cx.ckm00122000265.a7
> # BEGIN RECORD 2.0-873
> node.name = iqn.1992-04.com.emc:cx.ckm00122000265.a7
> node.tpgt = -1
> node.startup = automatic
> node.leading_login = No
> iface.hwaddress = 00:10:18:e6:c3:55
> iface.ipaddress = 10.2.90.68
> iface.iscsi_ifacename = bnx2i.00:10:18:e6:c3:55
> iface.net_ifacename = <empty>
Is this supposed to remain empty?

>
> After debugging and searching some information i believe that offload engine to operate needs:
> - dedicated daemon available under GPL (file COPYING) called 'iscsiuio' 
> - interface between iscsid and iscsiuio (propobly patchers of open-iscsi are required)
>
> I've been testing this on also on Centos, RHEL and SLES and in all of this distributions Offload engine is working gaining about 15% of performance. On thous distributions this problem is soled by including 'iscsiuio' and 'open-iscsi' into one 'initiator-tools' package, but I believe hat it dosn't have to be that way. They also use set of patches to make interface between this two components. There might be also a problem with DFSG since in iscsiuio there is release notes (file RELEASE.txt) leaved by Broadcom with copyrights but maybe 'iscsiuio' might be placed in non-free. I've tried to be precise, but if You need additional iformation please let me know.

Is iscsiuio part of the upstream open-iscsi source repository ? And
then, like you've said, we'll have to assess the licensing/copyright
details.

Best to start would be to check it in Fedora too. Fedora claims to be
GPL. So if those patches are shipped there, then we can spend some time
to study its possibility of getting included in Debian.


-- 
Ritesh Raj Sarraf
RESEARCHUT - http://www.researchut.com
"Necessity is the mother of invention."


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