[ANNOUNCE]: SCST 1.0.1 core, target drivers for iSCSI, QLogic 22xx/23xxand local as well as fileio_tgt backend handler and scstadmin utility v1.0.6released

[Vladislav Bolkhovitin]

Hi All,

I'm glad to announce release 1.0.1 of SCST core, target drivers for 
iSCSI, QLogic 22xx/23xx and local as well as fileio_tgt backend handler 
and scstadmin utility v1.0.6.

SCST is an alternative implementation of SCSI target subsystem for 
Linux. It provides unified, consistent interface between SCSI target 
drivers and Linux kernel as well as between Linux kernel and storage 
backend handlers, connecting target drivers with real or emulated 
storage backend.

SCST allows creation of sophisticated storage devices, which provide
advanced functionality, like replication, thin provisioning,
deduplication, high availability, automatic backup, etc. Another class
of such devices are Virtual Tape Libraries (VTL) as well as other
disk-based backup solutions. SCST created devices not limited by IP
network interface only, but they can use any link supporting SCSI-style
data exchange, including Fibre Channel, SAS and parallel SCSI. It might
well be that your favorite storage appliance running SCST in the firmware.

More info about SCST core and modules you can find on:

 - SCST core: http://scst.sourceforge.net

 - iSCSI target driver iSCSI-SCST: 
http://scst.sourceforge.net/target_iscsi.html

 - QLogic 22xx/23xx Fibre Channel target driver: 
http://scst.sourceforge.net/target_qla22xx_23xx.html

 - Local target driver: http://scst.sourceforge.net/target_local.html

 - fileio_tgt backend handler on 
http://scst.sourceforge.net/handler_fileio_tgt.html.

 - scstadmin: http://scst.sourceforge.net/scst_admin.html

SCST aims to be included in the mainline kernel. You can find the first
iteration of SCST patches review in http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/12/10/245.

You can download SCST core and modules from 
http://scst.sourceforge.net/downloads.html.

Summary of changes in SCST core between versions 1.0.0 and 1.0.1
----------------------------------------------------------------

  - Support for descriptor sense format added

  - Makefiles made more packager friendly (Ruben Laban)

  - Support for variable length CDB added

  - Support for Asynchronous Event Notifications added

  - Implemented "plug-and-play" notifications about new devices in
    security groups, deleted devices from security groups and changed
    size of a device. They can be delivered either through AENs (if
    supported), or Unit Attentions.

  - New command "resync_size" added to scst_vdisk proc interface to tell
    scst_vdisk to reread size of the corresponding device after it was
    changed

  - Added pattern matching for initiator names in SCST access control
    (Gennadiy Nerubayev)

  - Now only sent for execution commands are counted to wait for in TM
    commands, which made processing of TM commands faster

  - Now devices blocked only in reset TM commands. ABORTs, etc. now done
    without devices blocking.

  - scst_unregister_session_ex() removed, since there are no users of it

  -  New functions added to scst_user interface:

     * SCST_USER_UNREGISTER_DEVICE - to unregister device, flush mem
       reuse (SGV) cache and send UCMD_STATE_ON_CACHE_FREEING
       notifications for all freed buffers to the user space handler.
       Simple device close doesn't allow that, so all the cached buffers
       might look as "leaked" from the user space handler POV.

     * SCST_USER_FLUSH_CACHE - to flush mem reuse (SGV) cache and send
       UCMD_STATE_ON_CACHE_FREEING notifications for all freed buffers to
       the user space handler

     * SCST_USER_DEVICE_CAPACITY_CHANGED - to notify SCST core that the
       corresponding device has changed its capacity

  - Clustering of scst_user pages added

  - Added autogenerated SCSI SN in vdisk handler

  - Fixed race in scst_user, which could have lead to usage of already
    freed command. A misbehaving user space handler could have made ucmd
    to get dead immediately after the lock is released and that is caught
    now.

  - Support for CentOS 5.2 added (Bart Van Assche)

  - In scst_vdisk new module parameter num_threads added to specify a
    number of threads for each vdisk/vcdrom. Default is 5.

  - Access control docs updated

  - Set memory limits according to LOWMEM, not TOTALMEM

  - Major performance increase working with disk based storage

  - Now task_mgmt_fn() callback called for TARGET RESET and NEXUS LOSS
    functions only once for tgt_dev, which belongs to the session, from
    which the corresponding request came

  - SGV cache related parameters moved from scst.h to scst_sgv.h

  - Log level mgmt_minor for messages like "Warning: expected transfer
    length X for opcode Y" changed to be disabled by default

  - Added possibility to coexist if both target driver and dev handler
    need custom memory allocation. Direct consequences: (1) scst_local
    can work with scst_user's devices and (2) scst_user now compatible
    with iscsi-scst if put_page_callback patch not applied.

  - Deprecated scst_cmd_get_tgt_resp_flags() removed

  - SWP and TAS parameters made changeable in vdisk handler

  - External interface changed to fix usage of in_atomic(). Now target
    drivers and dev handlers need to explicitly supply preferred
    execution context in scst_cmd_done() and scst_tgt_cmd_done()

  - Handling of internal REQUEST SENSE fixed.

  - Fixed SAM violation (HiSup bit must be set in INQUIRY response)

  - Fixed handling of VERIFY commands that comes with BYTCHK unset

  - Handling of double reset UAs made more reliable

  - A lot of kernel style, checkpatch and sparse fixes (Bart Van Assche)

  - In-kernel build integration (Bart Van Assche)

  - Update for kernels up to 2.6.29

  - A lot of fixes and cleanups (many people)


Summary of changes in iSCSI-SCST between versions 1.0.0 and 1.0.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------

  - Support for variable length CDB added

  - Sending and receiving padding bytes as well as sense data
    reimplemented to make it more reliable

  - Support for SCSI Asynchronous Event Notifications added

  - Sessions and connections reinstatement reimplemented to be conforming
    to iSCSI RFC

  - iscsi-scst-adm fixed

  - Removed artificial limitation of sg_tablesize. It isn't needed,
    because the regular iSCSI negotiated MaxRecvDataSegmentLength-related
    facilities do all the job pretty well.

  - Merge with IET r170-211:

    * Update MaxConnections documentation

    * Remove isns config description from man page

    * Check return values of chdir(), ftruncate() and write(), because
      recent versions of the glibc insist on the return value being
      checked by introducing __attribute__((warn_unused_result)) to these
      functions.

    * Fix snprintf use in isns.c

    * Take \0-termination into account when passing strings to
      isns_tlv_set() to solve incompatibility with MS iSNS 3.0 as IQN
      length is multiple of 4

    * Fix list corruption if SCST target registration fails

    * Register the target port actually used instead of the default iSCSI
      port.

    * Remove unused connection->pad

    * Refactor cmnd_execute()

    * Introduce min*/max*() and more list_* macros

    * Multipart PDU support for discovery sessions

    * Add support for Reject PDUs and make use of them in appropriate
      places.

    * Ignore SIGPIPE in iscsi-scstd

    * Allow removal of kernel target objects if the user space object
      does not exist

    * Use netlink_socket_release() to clean up netlink sockets correctly
      (taking care of namespaces)

    * More scalable proc seq_file implementation

    * Segfault in ietd buffer overrun in dump_line

    * Add iscsi-scst-adm support to display list of CHAP accounts and
      their data

    * Fixed compilation on glibc 2.8

    * Fix CHAP account handling bugs

    * Fix bugs in multi PDU handling code

  - Support for CentOS 5.2 added (Bart Van Assche)

  - Fixed NOP-Out with payload handling

  - Several minor iSCSI RFC violations fixed

  - Update for kernels up to 2.6.29

  - Zero-copy feature, introduced by put_page_callback patch made
    kernel compile time configurable via
    CONFIG_TCP_ZERO_COPY_TRANSFER_COMPLETION_NOTIFICATION option. If you
    upgrade from earlier versions, see the corresponding "[CAUTION]"
    e-mail in scst-devel mailing list about possible compatibility
    problems.

  - A lot of cleanups and minor fixes


Summary of changes in qla2x00t between versions 1.0.0 and 1.0.1
---------------------------------------------------------------

  - Update to initiator driver from 2.6.27

  - HOWTO added (Amit Mehta)

  - Fixed wrong sess_count decrement on session registration failure

  - Fixed possible oops in the initiator driver on the module unload

  - Updated to work on kernels up to 2.6.29

  - Other minor fixes


Summary of changes in fileio_tgt between versions 1.0.0 and 1.0.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------

  - Added notification about device capacity change

  - Usage of new commands SCST_USER_UNREGISTER_DEVICE,
    SCST_USER_FLUSH_CACHE and SCST_USER_DEVICE_CAPACITY_CHANGED added

  - Sync with vdisk handler

  - Added autogenerated SCSI SN


Thanks to all who made it happen!
Vlad

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