zfs discuss - Jun 2012 - "shareiscsi" and COMSTAR

Hello all,

   I am revising an older OpenSolaris file-server before an upgrade
to OI, and this server uses COMSTAR to publish some zvols via iSCSI.
As I revised the procedure used to set it up originally, I remember
that the initial OpenSolaris iSCSI stack performed poorer, but only
it was integrated with "zfs set shareiscsi=..." attribute, and part
of migration to COMSTAR was to make sure that these attributes are
set to "off" so that the older iSCSI daemon does not start up when
the pool is imported.

   Questions are:

1) Is COMSTAR still not-integrated with shareiscsi ZFS attributes?
    Or can the pool use the attribute, and the correct (new COMSTAR)
    iSCSI target daemon will fire up?

2) What would be the best way to migrate iSCSI server configuration
    (LUs, views, allowed client lists, etc.) - is it sufficient to
    just export the SMF config of "stmf" service, or do I also need
    some other services and/or files (/etc/iscsi, something else?)

Thanks,
//Jim Klimov

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Jim Klimov <jimklimov at cos.ru>
wrote:
> 1) Is COMSTAR still not-integrated with shareiscsi ZFS attributes?
> ? Or can the pool use the attribute, and the correct (new COMSTAR)
> ? iSCSI target daemon will fire up?
I can''t speak for Solaris 11, but for illumos, you need to use the
stmfadm, itadm, and related tools, not the shareiscsi ZFS property.
> 2) What would be the best way to migrate iSCSI server configuration
> ? (LUs, views, allowed client lists, etc.) - is it sufficient to
> ? just export the SMF config of "stmf" service, or do I also need
> ? some other services and/or files (/etc/iscsi, something else?)
If you''re migrating from the old iSCSI target daemon to COMSTAR, I
would recommend doing the migration manually and rebuilding the iSCSI
configuration.  While this blog entry is written to users of the 7000
series storage appliance, it may be useful as you''re thinking about
how to proceed:

https://blogs.oracle.com/wdp/entry/comstar_iscsi

- Bill

-- 
Bill Pijewski, Joyent ? ? ? http://dtrace.org/blogs/wdp/

2012-06-27 1:00, Bill Pijewski wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Jim Klimov <jimklimov at cos.ru>
wrote:
>> 1) Is COMSTAR still not-integrated with shareiscsi ZFS attributes?
>>    Or can the pool use the attribute, and the correct (new COMSTAR)
>>    iSCSI target daemon will fire up?
>
> I can''t speak for Solaris 11, but for illumos, you need to use the
> stmfadm, itadm, and related tools, not the shareiscsi ZFS property.
Thanks, so this remains as it was...

Would it make sense to "raise the noise" and somehow get the
shareiscsi attribute working for COMSTAR? IMHO this would be
a nice feature for pools failed over or otherwise imported
between several hosts (or OS versions without a direct upgrade
path, as in my case). Or did ideology of the iSCSI set-up
change so much that a single config option just does not
cut it anymore (in that case, I think several options could
be passed and/or inherited with comma-separated attribute
values, like for sharenfs and sharesmb))?
>> 2) What would be the best way to migrate iSCSI server configuration
>>    (LUs, views, allowed client lists, etc.) - is it sufficient to
>>    just export the SMF config of "stmf" service, or do I also
need
>>    some other services and/or files (/etc/iscsi, something else?)
>
> If you''re migrating from the old iSCSI target daemon to COMSTAR, I
> would recommend doing the migration manually and rebuilding the iSCSI
> configuration.  While this blog entry is written to users of the 7000
> series storage appliance, it may be useful as you''re thinking
about
> how to proceed:
>
> https://blogs.oracle.com/wdp/entry/comstar_iscsi
No, the story here was that the server''s old OS already used COMSTAR;
however that OS was SXCE and has to be migrated into OI manually or
close to that, by inspecting and copying configs. I wondered if there
is a simpler way than running "view" commands in one OS image, writing
down the outputs (paths, GUIDs and stuff like that), and entering them
in another OS image. For most of the system settings copying of files
and/or SMF definitions sufficed; I wonder if it is also the case with
COMSTAR - and if so, where is its config recorded?

Thanks,
//Jim