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

Wed Feb 13 15:41:05 UTC 2013

Hi,

2013/2/13 Ritesh Raj Sarraf <rrs at researchut.com>

> 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.
>

I count on it too :) Now all of hardware of this type that I have access to
is used in production environment. It is quite easy to migrate services
somewhere else from time to time. But for now only tests without upgrading
system to any other than stable are possible. (upgrading and downgrading
iscsi-tools is okej for me)

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?
>
>

Unfortunately I do not know what interface name iscsid is using to
communicate. I suppose it might be  bnx2i.00:10:18:e6:c3:55 and it is
failing because it is not available in system as regular interface (it is
not listed by ifconfig).

> > 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 ?
>
>
>From iscsiadm point of view default interface name is bnx2i.[MAC_ADDRESS]
where MAC_ADDRESS is addres of iscsi offload engine witch is different that
regular interface mac address. Mac of interface is 00:10:18:e6:c3:54 and
mac of offload engine is 00:10:18:e6:c3:55

> >
> > 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?
>

It might be filled net_interface OR hwaddress. You can't have them both.
But as I see now when I was preparing configuration for bug reporting
purposes I did a mistake. hwaddress should be 00:10:18:e6:c3:54. I a few
days on testing in on many cases and left this kind of bug in bug report...
such a shame :/

> >
> > 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.
>

It is not.It seems that other distributions are bundling open-iscsi and
iscsiuio in one package on their own.

> 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.
>
>
Fedora do have the this package. There is iscsiuio daemon in it.

http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/iscsi-initiator-utils.git/tree/sources

Level up tehre are also patches. I believe that minimum required to work
have numbers 57-59 and 71-77

regards
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