xref: /freebsd/sys/cam/ctl/README.ctl.txt (revision 8ddb146abcdf061be9f2c0db7e391697dafad85c)
1/* $FreeBSD$ */
2
3CTL - CAM Target Layer Description
4
5Revision 1.4 (December 29th, 2011)
6Ken Merry <ken@FreeBSD.org>
7
8Table of Contents:
9=================
10
11Introduction
12Features
13Configuring and Running CTL
14Revision 1.N Changes
15To Do List
16Code Roadmap
17Userland Commands
18
19Introduction:
20============
21
22CTL is a disk, processor and cdrom device emulation subsystem originally
23written for Copan Systems under Linux starting in 2003.  It has been
24shipping in Copan (now SGI) products since 2005.
25
26It was ported to FreeBSD in 2008, and thanks to an agreement between SGI
27(who acquired Copan's assets in 2010) and Spectra Logic in 2010, CTL is
28available under a BSD-style license.  The intent behind the agreement was
29that Spectra would work to get CTL into the FreeBSD tree.
30
31Features:
32========
33
34 - Disk, processor and cdrom device emulation.
35 - Tagged queueing
36 - SCSI task attribute support (ordered, head of queue, simple tags)
37 - SCSI implicit command ordering support.  (e.g. if a read follows a mode
38   select, the read will be blocked until the mode select completes.)
39 - Full task management support (abort, LUN reset, target reset, etc.)
40 - Support for multiple ports
41 - Support for multiple simultaneous initiators
42 - Support for multiple simultaneous backing stores
43 - Support for VMWare VAAI: COMPARE AND WRITE, XCOPY, WRITE SAME and
44   UNMAP commands
45 - Support for Microsoft ODX: POPULATE TOKEN/WRITE USING TOKEN, WRITE SAME
46   and UNMAP commands
47 - Persistent reservation support
48 - Mode sense/select support
49 - Error injection support
50 - High Availability clustering support with ALUA
51 - All I/O handled in-kernel, no userland context switch overhead.
52
53Configuring and Running CTL:
54===========================
55
56 - Add 'device ctl' to your kernel configuration file or load the module.
57
58 - If you're running with a 8Gb or 4Gb Qlogic FC board, add
59   'options ISP_TARGET_MODE' to your kernel config file. 'device ispfw' or
60   loading the ispfw module is also recommended.
61
62 - Rebuild and install a new kernel.
63
64 - Reboot with the new kernel.
65
66 - To add a LUN with the RAM disk backend:
67
68	ctladm create -b ramdisk -s 10485760000000000000
69	ctladm port -o on
70
71 - You should now see the CTL disk LUN through camcontrol devlist:
72
73scbus6 on ctl2cam0 bus 0:
74<FREEBSD CTLDISK 0001>             at scbus6 target 1 lun 0 (da24,pass32)
75<>                                 at scbus6 target -1 lun -1 ()
76
77   This is visible through the CTL CAM SIM.  This allows using CTL without
78   any physical hardware.  You should be able to issue any normal SCSI
79   commands to the device via the pass(4)/da(4) devices.
80
81   If any target-capable HBAs are in the system (e.g. isp(4)), and have
82   target mode enabled, you should now also be able to see the CTL LUNs via
83   that target interface.
84
85   Note that all CTL LUNs are presented to all frontends.  There is no
86   LUN masking, or separate, per-port configuration.
87
88 - Note that the ramdisk backend is a "fake" ramdisk.  That is, it is
89   backed by a small amount of RAM that is used for all I/O requests.  This
90   is useful for performance testing, but not for any data integrity tests.
91
92 - To add a LUN with the block/file backend:
93
94	truncate -s +1T myfile
95	ctladm create -b block -o file=myfile
96	ctladm port -o on
97
98 - You can also see a list of LUNs and their backends like this:
99
100# ctladm devlist
101LUN Backend       Size (Blocks)   BS Serial Number    Device ID
102  0 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   0     MYDEVID   0
103  1 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   1     MYDEVID   1
104  2 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   2     MYDEVID   2
105  3 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   3     MYDEVID   3
106  4 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   4     MYDEVID   4
107  5 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   5     MYDEVID   5
108  6 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   6     MYDEVID   6
109  7 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   7     MYDEVID   7
110  8 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   8     MYDEVID   8
111  9 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   9     MYDEVID   9
112 10 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL  10     MYDEVID  10
113 11 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL  11     MYDEVID  11
114
115 - You can see the LUN type and backing store for block/file backend LUNs
116   like this:
117
118# ctladm devlist -v
119LUN Backend       Size (Blocks)   BS Serial Number    Device ID
120  0 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   0     MYDEVID   0
121      lun_type=0
122      num_threads=14
123      file=testdisk0
124  1 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   1     MYDEVID   1
125      lun_type=0
126      num_threads=14
127      file=testdisk1
128  2 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   2     MYDEVID   2
129      lun_type=0
130      num_threads=14
131      file=testdisk2
132  3 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   3     MYDEVID   3
133      lun_type=0
134      num_threads=14
135      file=testdisk3
136  4 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   4     MYDEVID   4
137      lun_type=0
138      num_threads=14
139      file=testdisk4
140  5 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   5     MYDEVID   5
141      lun_type=0
142      num_threads=14
143      file=testdisk5
144  6 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   6     MYDEVID   6
145      lun_type=0
146      num_threads=14
147      file=testdisk6
148  7 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   7     MYDEVID   7
149      lun_type=0
150      num_threads=14
151      file=testdisk7
152  8 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   8     MYDEVID   8
153      lun_type=0
154      num_threads=14
155      file=testdisk8
156  9 block            2147483648  512 MYSERIAL   9     MYDEVID   9
157      lun_type=0
158      num_threads=14
159      file=testdisk9
160 10 ramdisk                   0    0 MYSERIAL   0     MYDEVID   0
161      lun_type=3
162 11 ramdisk     204800000000000  512 MYSERIAL   1     MYDEVID   1
163      lun_type=0
164
165Revision 1.4 Changes
166====================
167 - Added in the second HA mode (where CTL does the data transfers instead
168   of having data transfers done below CTL), and abstracted out the Copan
169   HA API.
170
171 - Fixed the phantom device problem in the CTL CAM SIM and improved the
172   CAM SIM to automatically trigger a rescan when the port is enabled and
173   disabled.
174
175 - Made the number of threads in the block backend configurable via sysctl,
176   loader tunable and the ctladm command line.  (You can now specify
177   -o num_threads=4 when creating a LUN with ctladm create.)
178
179 - Fixed some LUN selection issues in ctlstat(8) and allowed for selection
180   of LUN numbers up to 1023.
181
182 - General cleanup.
183
184 - This version intended for public release.
185
186Revision 1.3 Changes
187====================
188 - Added descriptor sense support to CTL.  It can be enabled through the
189   control mode page (10), but is disabled by default.
190
191 - Improved error injection support.  The number of errors that can be
192   injected with 'ctladm inject' has been increased, and any arbitrary
193   sense data may now be injected as well.
194
195 - The port infrastructure has been revamped.  Individual ports and types
196   of ports may now be enabled and disabled from the command line.  ctladm
197   now has the ability to set the WWNN and WWPN for each port.
198
199 - The block backend can now send multiple I/Os to backing files.  Multiple
200   writes are only allowed for ZFS, but multiple readers are allowed for
201   any filesystem.
202
203 - The block and ramdisk backends now support setting the LUN blocksize.
204   There are some restrictions when the backing device is a block device,
205   but otherwise the blocksize may be set to anything.
206
207Revision 1.2 Changes
208====================
209
210 - CTL initialization process has been revamped.  Instead of using an
211   ad-hoc method, it is now sequenced through SYSINIT() calls.
212
213 - A block/file backend has been added.  This allows using arbitrary files
214   or block devices as a backing store.
215
216 - The userland LUN configuration interface has been completely rewritten.
217   Configuration is now done out of band.
218
219 - The ctladm(8) command line interface has been revamped, and is now
220   similar to camcontrol(8).
221
222To Do List:
223==========
224
225 - Use devstat(9) for CTL's statistics collection.  CTL uses a home-grown
226   statistics collection system that is similar to devstat(9).  ctlstat
227   should be retired in favor of iostat, etc., once aggregation modes are
228   available in iostat to match the behavior of ctlstat -t and dump modes
229   are available to match the behavior of ctlstat -d/ctlstat -J.
230
231 - ZFS ARC backend for CTL.  Since ZFS copies all I/O into the ARC
232   (Adaptive Replacement Cache), running the block/file backend on top of a
233   ZFS-backed zdev or file will involve an extra set of copies.  The
234   optimal solution for backing targets served by CTL with ZFS would be to
235   allocate buffers out of the ARC directly, and DMA to/from them directly.
236   That would eliminate an extra data buffer allocation and copy.
237
238 - Switch CTL over to using CAM CCBs instead of its own union ctl_io.  This
239   will likely require a significant amount of work, but will eliminate
240   another data structure in the stack, more memory allocations, etc.  This
241   will also require changes to the CAM CCB structure to support CTL.
242
243Code Roadmap:
244============
245
246CTL has the concept of pluggable frontend ports and backends.  All
247frontends and backends can be active at the same time.  You can have a
248ramdisk-backed LUN present along side a file backed LUN.
249
250ctl.c:
251-----
252
253This is the core of CTL, where all of the command handlers and a lot of
254other things live.  Yes, it is large.  It started off small and grew to its
255current size over time.  Perhaps it can be split into more files at some
256point.
257
258Here is a roadmap of some of the primary functions in ctl.c.  Starting here
259and following the various leaf functions will show the command flow.
260
261ctl_queue() / ctl_run()	This is where commands from the frontend ports come
262			in.
263
264ctl_queue_sense()	This is only used for non-packetized SCSI.  i.e.
265			parallel SCSI prior to U320 and perhaps U160.
266
267ctl_work_thread() 	This is the primary work thread, and everything gets
268			executed from there.
269
270ctl_scsiio_precheck() 	This where all of the initial checks are done, and I/O
271			is either queued for execution or blocked.
272
273ctl_scsiio() 		This is where the command handler is actually
274			executed.  (See ctl_cmd_table.c for the mapping of
275			SCSI opcode to command handler function.)
276
277ctl_done()		This is the routine called (or ctl_done_lock()) to
278			initiate the command completion process.
279
280ctl_process_done()	This is where command completion actually happens.
281
282ctl.h:
283-----
284
285Basic function declarations and data structures.
286
287ctl_backend.c,
288ctl_backend.h:
289-------------
290
291These files define the basic CTL backend API.  The comments in the header
292explain the API.
293
294ctl_backend_block.c
295-------------------
296
297The block and file backend.  This allows for using a disk or a file as the
298backing store for a LUN.  Multiple threads are started to do I/O to the
299backing device, primarily because the VFS API requires that to get any
300concurrency.
301
302ctl_backend_ramdisk.c:
303---------------------
304
305A "fake" ramdisk backend.  It only allocates a small amount of memory to
306act as a source and sink for reads and writes from an initiator.  Therefore
307it cannot be used for any real data, but it can be used to test for
308throughput.  It can also be used to test initiators' support for extremely
309large LUNs.
310
311ctl_cmd_table.c:
312---------------
313
314This is a table with all 256 possible SCSI opcodes, and command handler
315functions defined for supported opcodes.  It is included in ctl.c.
316
317ctl_debug.h:
318-----------
319
320Simplistic debugging support.
321
322ctl_error.c,
323ctl_error.h:
324-----------
325
326CTL-specific wrappers around the CAM sense building functions.
327
328ctl_frontend.c,
329ctl_frontend.h:
330--------------
331
332These files define the basic CTL frontend port API.  The comments in the
333header explain the API.
334
335ctl_frontend_cam_sim.c:
336----------------------
337
338This is a CTL frontend port that is also a CAM SIM.  The idea is that this
339frontend allows for using CTL without any target-capable hardware.  So any
340LUNs you create in CTL are visible via this port.
341
342ctl_ha.c:
343ctl_ha.h:
344--------
345
346This is a High Availability API and TCP-based interlink implementation.
347
348ctl_io.h:
349--------
350
351This defines most of the core CTL I/O structures.  union ctl_io is
352conceptually very similar to CAM's union ccb.
353
354ctl_ioctl.h:
355-----------
356
357This defines all ioctls available through the CTL character device, and
358the data structures needed for those ioctls.
359
360ctl_private.h:
361-------------
362
363Private data structres (e.g. CTL softc) and function prototypes.  This also
364includes the SCSI vendor and product names used by CTL.
365
366ctl_scsi_all.c
367ctl_scsi_all.h:
368--------------
369
370CTL wrappers around CAM sense printing functions.
371
372ctl_ser_table.c:
373---------------
374
375Command serialization table.  This defines what happens when one type of
376command is followed by another type of command.  e.g., what do you do when
377you have a mode select followed by a write?  You block the write until the
378mode select is complete.  That is defined in this table.
379
380ctl_util.c
381ctl_util.h:
382----------
383
384CTL utility functions, primarily designed to be used from userland.  See
385ctladm for the primary consumer of these functions.  These include CDB
386building functions.
387
388scsi_ctl.c:
389----------
390
391CAM target peripheral driver and CTL frontend port.  This is the path into
392CTL for commands from target-capable hardware/SIMs.
393
394Userland Commands:
395=================
396
397ctladm(8) fills a role similar to camcontrol(8).  It allow configuring LUNs,
398issuing commands, injecting errors and various other control functions.
399
400ctlstat(8) fills a role similar to iostat(8).  It reports I/O statistics
401for CTL.
402