From ConShell

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Components 3 Network Details 4 Authentication 5 Operating system support 5.1 Microsoft 5.2 Linux 5.2.1 Ubuntu 5.2.2 Red Hat 5.2.3 CentOS 5.2.4 Debian 5.3 Mac OS/X 5.4 FreeBSD 5.5 NetBSD 5.6 OpenBSD 5.7 Solaris 5.8 AIX 5.9 HP-UX 5.10 Interoperability matrix 5.11 Related Links

Introduction

iSCSI is SCSI over IP. It is a standard described in RFC 3720 and 3783. The implementation is split into separate client-server components.

Components

iSCSI Initiator - client-side implementation to attach to iSCSI block devices over the network (IP).

iSCSI Target - server-side implementation to expose disks, partitions or volumes as block devices over the network.

Network Details

iSCSI normally uses the following default as per standards.

• Port: 3260
• Protocol: TCP
• Block size: 512 <= Adjustable

There are at least two major vendor implementations. One is by Cisco and the other by Intel.

Authentication

Most implementations support CHAP as authentication mechanism.

Operating system support

Microsoft

See Microsoft Support for iSCSI web page.

Microsoft provides a free "Initiator" utility which can be downloaded here.

Linux

Under Linux, the iSCSI statistics can be seen under /proc/scsi/iscsi

Ubuntu

Nothing available for Dapper (6.06) in base, universe or multiverse). Compile the open-iscsi by hand (see below).

For Feisty, install open-iscsi 2.0.730-1 from the universe repository.

Red Hat

Package iscsi-initiator-utils is in the base. See Related Links for an iscsi-target setup. Read all the gory details at Installation and Design Notes for iSCSI RHEL 4 U2

CentOS

See Red Hat above.

Debian

Recent development efforts have merged into open-iscsi.

Mac OS/X

Unknown

FreeBSD

There is an iscsi-target port available. This is merely a clone of the netbsd-iscsi port shown below. As of 7.0-RELEASE initiator support is available via iscsi_initiator(8) kernel module and iscontrol(4). See http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/freebsd-iscsi-initiator-howto/

NetBSD

There is an netbsd-iscsi package available as of 4.0.

See ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/agc/ for a couple of instructional HOWTOs.

OpenBSD

Unknown

Solaris

Unknown

AIX

Unknown

HP-UX

Unknown

Interoperability matrix

Please see our iSCSI Interoperability Matrix for viewing and adding compatibility entries.

Related Links

• Build an iSCSI target on CentOS-4...
• OpenFiler website...
• A Quick Guide to iSCSI on Linux...
• Creating a SAN with iSCSI...
• iSCSI Page @ (Wikipedia)...
• Microsoft Storage Technologies - iSCSI...
• Installation and Design Notes for iSCSI RHEL 4 U2
• Open iSCSI homepage
• iSCSI on FreeBSD (@ConchShell)