iSCSI: Towards a more effective PDU format

["Barry Reinhold - Lamprey POP3" <bbr@lampreyNetworks.com>]

All,

I know there are well defined feelings about how a PDU should be structured,
and not everyone is going to be in the same camp on this issue. However, I
am concerned that the current PDU format with the WN field has not really
achieved the goals that I, for one, would like to see it achieve. So, let me
list a few objectives for the PDU format and then suggest one possible
solution.

Objectives for the iSCSI PDU (that could be improved upon).

1. Simplicity - The PDU layout should be as straight forward as possible.
Interoperability starts with simplicity. When the logical function is
simple, documenting proper usage is a whole lot easier. When documentation
is clear in a standard, the time to interoperability and market acceptance
is reduced.

2. Efficient operation in the common execution path. I think "rough
consensus" can probably be achieved in terms of what parts of an iSCSI
header are going to be needed in the normal flow and what parts are
exception cases. If we have consensus on this we should be able to agree on
where to make things easy and where to add complexity.

3. Data integrity - If a header digest is going to be provided, the
information it covers should be checked against the digest before being
used.

I think we can improve the current PDU format, in terms of these objectives,
by doing the following:

1. Providing a fixed size header that contains the most commonly used
fields.
2. Placing less commonly used fields in an optional portion of the header.
3. Providing a header digest over the fixed portion of the header and a
separate digest for the optional portion of the header.

Basic approach:

1. The fixed "BHS" portion of the header is in all iSCSI PDU headers. It is
always the same size and is followed by a header digest that covers the
"BHS", if header digests are being used. The fact that header digests are
being used within a TCP byte stream is not encoded into the frame, but is
obtained from state associated with the session. This allows the location of
the header digest to be determined without using any information in the
header. Only when the integrity of the header has been validated is the
information in it used.

2. The header contains information on the size of the complete PDU, and a
length field for any additional headers. The integrity of this information
has been validated as it is part of the "BHS". The location of the
additional headers, if they exist (in most cases they will not) is after the
header digest. Thus additional headers can be located using validated
information.

3. Each additional header is encoded using a standard TLV (type, length,
value) format. In TLV format the fixed size type indicator tells how to
interpret the data. The fixed size length field says how long the data is,
and the variable sized value field contains the data. If an application
doesn't understand the type, it can maintain sync. in the byte stream by
skipping to the length field and then skipping the value.

4. The complete set of TLV values are covered by a distinct digest. This
digest is considered a part of the header digest in terms of iSCSI option
negotiation but is physically distinct. Although this requires another
digest calculation its usage is expected to be fairly low and it is most
likely calculated over a small number of bytes.

5. The data and data digest follow the TLV digest.

In terms of layout, what you might have is the following:

================= Start of iSCSI PDU =============================



	This portion of the PDU contains the information in
	the "BHS" plus:

	1. The length field (4 bytes)
	2. The length of the TLV information

--------------- End of the fixed size header ---------------------
--------------- Start of the header digest (optional) ------------

--------------- End of the header digest -------------------------
--------------- Start of TLV information (optional) --------------

    (Additional header fields go here in a variable length space)


--------------- End of TLV information ---------------------------
------ Start of "TLV header" digest (if header digest present)----

--------------- End of "TLV header" digest -----------------------
--------------- Start of data ------------------------------------




--------------- End of data --------------------------------------
--------------- Start of data digest (optional) ------------------

=============== End of data digest and PDU =======================

[David B: This looks better in a .pdf....are we allowed to use pdfs on this
reflector?]

I believe this to be a simple yet efficient structure for common usage.
The optional headers require more involved processing, but allow incremental
advancement of the TCP byte stream and avoids the loss of synchronization
that might take place in other formats.
The header can be verified, before being used.

[Note 1: This PDU format does not attempt to address the problem of how to
recover when there is a digest error. I believe this to be a distinct
problem, though the PDU format could provide some additional level of
robustness via redundancy of information at known locations.]

[Note 2: Julian, If more detailed information on the PDU format is needed I
would be glad to present it. However I think that most of the significant
issues are addressed by this outline. The other items don't appear, to me,
to be as significant.]

Barry Reinhold
Barry.Reinhold@trebia.com
603-659-0885