ISCSI: Immediate data extending beyond a single PDU

["Barry Reinhold - Lamprey" <bbr@lampreyNetworks.com>]

Julian,

My understanding of your email in conjunction with the current draft is:

The initiator may send zero or more immediate data bytes in the CMD PDU, and
may send additional unsolicited DATA PDUs with further immediate data, with
the
last PDU having the F bit set. The total amount of immediate data to be
limited
by the value negotiated at login.

There are two issues I have with this:

First, the target does not know how much immediate data has being sent.
There
is no indication in the CMD frame to indicate that more immediate data is to
follow (whether or not the CMD frame contains any immediate data). The
initiator is free to send any amount, from zero up to the negotiated value.
Therefore, the target will likely send an R2T to the host at whatever
boundry
it believes is present - which may cause a retransmission of much or all of
the
immediate data.

Second, the additional unsolicited PDU's do not contain a target
task/transfer
tag. As such, in the mainline processing, you are perhaps forcing the target
to
look up the Initiator Task Tag in its list of active i/o's. This may exact a
heavy performance penalty as optimizing this lookup maybe cost-prohibitive.
The
only other scenarios in which the target had to perform this lookup was in
low-occurance error/abort conditions.

Are there negative implications to keeping immediate data to a single PDU?

-- Barry


julian_satran@il.ibm.com wrote:

> Barry,
>
> Immediate data is "attached to the command". If your unsolicited data (the
> so called initial burst) is larger that what you are ready to commit to a
> single PDU you can send several PDUs with the  last having the F bit.
After
> that the target can decide that it wants more and send an R2T or send
> status.
>
> You are no supposed to send both immediate and separate PDU.
>
> I admit that the text is bit confusing (in 1.2.5)  and there is an error
> also in the appendix.
> 2.7.1 talk about unsolicited data (not immediate) (the context is data
> PDUs).
>
> The new version of 1.2.5 now reads:
>
>    Unsolicited data can be sent as part of an iSCSI command PDU
("immediate
>    data") or an in separate iSCSI data PDUs.  An initiator may send
>    unsolicited data either as immediate (up to the negotiated maximum PDU
>    size - DataPDULength - disconnect-reconnect mode page) or in a separate
>    PDU sequence (up to the negotiated limit - FirstBurstSize -
>    disconnect-reconnect mode page). All subsequent data have to be
>    solicited.  The maximum size of an individual data PDU or the
>    immediate-part of the initial unsolicited burst as well as the initial
>    burst size MAY be negotiated at login.
>
> Thanks,
> Julo
>
> "Barry Reinhold - Lamprey" <bbr@lampreyNetworks.com> on 29/01/2001
16:34:30
>
> Please respond to "Barry Reinhold - Lamprey" <bbr@lampreyNetworks.com>
>
> To:   Julian Satran/Haifa/IBM@IBMIL
> cc:   "Jon Sreekanth" <jon.sreekanth@trebia.com>, "James Smart"
>       <james.smart@trebia.com>
> Subject:
>
> Issue:
>
> I am unclear on how to respond to an iSCSI SCSI command PDU when there is
> immediate data but not enough to meet the requirements of the IO operation
> as given in the expected data transfer length field. Should an R2T be
> issued
> or not?
>
> Background:
>
> Clause 2.7.1 in 03 reads:
>
> "2.7.1 F (Final) bit
>
>    This bit is 1 for the last PDU of immediate data or the last PDU of a
>    sequence answering a R2T."
>
> This suggests that immediate data can extend beyond the iSCSI SCSI CMD PDU
> (there is no final bit on the command PDU)but the closet thing we have to
a
> definition for immediate data, which is in clause 1.2.5 below, suggests
> that
> immediate data is limitted to the command PDU:
>
> "Outgoing SCSI data (initiator to target - user data or command
>    parameters) will be sent as either solicited data or unsolicited
>    data.  Solicited data are sent in response to Ready To Transfer (R2T)
>    PDUs. Unsolicited data can be part of an iSCSI command PDU
>    ("immediate data") or an iSCSI data PDU.  An initiator may send
>    unsolicited data (immediate or in a separate PDU) up to the
>    negotiated limit (initial burst size - mode page 02h). All subsequent
>    data have to be solicited.  The maximum size of an individual data
>    PDU or the immediate-part of the initial unsolicited burst MAY be
>    negotiated at login (maximum connect size - mode page 02h)."
>
> Unsolicited data is bounded in a number of ways, but most significant to
> this issue is in the description of the login key useR2t which states:
>
> "Note than only the first
>    outgoing data item (either immediate data or a separate PDU) can be
>    sent unsolicited by a R2T."
>
> Given the above it is unclear to me if the concept of immediate data is:
>
> 1. Write data that can be sent without an R2T (unsolicited write data)and
> starts in the command PDU.
> 2. Write data that is entirely contained within the command PDU. (my
> initial
> concept of immediate data)
> 3. The non-zero portion of data, in a possible multi-PDU write operation,
> that is contained in the iSCSI SCSI command PDU. Where the remaining PDUs
> of
> the write operation must be solicited with an R2T.
>
> Given the current definition of the Final bit and the current limits on
> unsolicited data it is unclear to me what a target should do when
receiving
> an iSCSI SCSI command PDU that has immediate data in it, but not
sufficient
> data to meet the expected data transfer length specificied in the command.
> Does an R2T go out of not?
>
> Barry Reinhold
> 603-659-0885

Barry Reinhold
603-659-0885