[ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Andrew Vasquez]

All,

A new version of the 8.x series driver for Linux 2.6.x kernels has
been uploaded to SourceForge:

	http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-qla2xxx/

Changes from previous release (8.00.00b6) include:

	o Merge several large patches from Christoph Hellwig:
	  - split driver into a common qla2xxx.ko lib with light-weight
	    ISP driver modules (qla2?xx.ko).
	  - Failover code optional and split from main code.
	o Merge several patches from Jes Sorensen:
	  - IA64 allocations
	  - PCI posting issues. 
	o Clean-up slab-cache allocations (-> mempool).
	o Fix GA_NXT portid preparation problem.
	o NVRAM interface tool for all hardware platforms.
	o Tar-ball extracts to qla2xxx-<version>/

Review the revision notes for further details of the changes in
8.00.00b7.

Some words regarding the NVRAM tool:

	WARNINGS
		EXTREME CARE MUST TO BE TAKEN WHEN CHANGING 
		NVRAM CONTENTS, INCORRECT DATA MAY RENDER THE ADAPTER 
		UNUSABLE TO THE POINT THAT THE OPERATING SYSTEM MAY 
		NO LONGER FUNCTION.

	NOTES
		Each NVRAM is has a unique port name for every adapter 
		so the same data file generated from the NVRAM tool
		cannot be used to load multiple adapters. Each adapter 
		must have its NVRAM dumped then modified before loading. 
		In the case of adapters that contain multiple ports each 
		port has its own unique NVRAM and must be programmed 
		separately.

	Use of this tool is *STRONGLY* discouraged.  Most if not all 
	useful NVRAM parameters have module_param overrides.  This tool
	is meant only to assist users who use QLogic HBAs on platforms
	with no GUI/CLI support.

Finally, a large thanks goes out to Christoph for his persistence and
efforts.

Regards,
Andrew Vasquez
QLogic Corporation

RE: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Andrew Vasquez]

On Friday, December 05, 2003 12:53 PM, Andrew Vasquez wrote:
> All,
> 
> A new version of the 8.x series driver for Linux 2.6.x kernels has
> been uploaded to SourceForge: 
> 
> 	http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-qla2xxx/
>

False start.  I've uploaded 8.00.00b8 to the SF site.  This driver
instructs the mid-layer to perform its initial scan with
scsi_scan_host().  During testing, I disable the scan.  Sorry for
the confusion.

BTW: a simple patch to fix the problem against b7 follows.  
Please dismiss 8.00.00b7 (I've since removed it from the SF site).

Regards,
Andrew Vasquez


diff -Nurd 80000b7/qla_os.c 80000b7-scan/qla_os.c
--- 80000b7/qla_os.c	2003-12-05 10:39:58.000000000 -0800
+++ 80000b7-scan/qla_os.c	2003-12-05 16:40:21.855654968 -0800
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@
 
 int ql2xsuspendcount = SUSPEND_COUNT;
 
-int ql2xdoinitscan = 0;
+int ql2xdoinitscan = 1;
 
 int qla2x00_retryq_dmp;
 

Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 05:15:14PM -0800, Andrew Vasquez wrote:
> On Friday, December 05, 2003 12:53 PM, Andrew Vasquez wrote:
> > All,
> > 
> > A new version of the 8.x series driver for Linux 2.6.x kernels has
> > been uploaded to SourceForge: 
> > 
> > 	http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-qla2xxx/
> >
> 
> False start.  I've uploaded 8.00.00b8 to the SF site.  This driver
> instructs the mid-layer to perform its initial scan with
> scsi_scan_host().  During testing, I disable the scan.  Sorry for
> the confusion.

Second problem seems to be that the extras/ dir missed the executable
bit..

Here's some patches for you:

http://verein.lst.de/~hch/qla/QLA1-kconfig-b7

	use select for CONFIG_SCSI_QLA2XXX, shorten the name
	of the failover option, sanitize kconfig texts.

http://verein.lst.de/~hch/qla/QLA2-noioctl-b7

	make ioctl code optional.  this is a bit ugly because
	sometimes we use defines from exioct.h in non-ioctl
	related code.  Btw, is it just me or is the ioctl code
	never called actually?

http://verein.lst.de/~hch/qla/QLA3-down_timeout-b7

	use a common and simpler variant of the down with timeout
	scheme.  We should probably try to get a proper down_timeout
	as this one still is quite suboptimal..

http://verein.lst.de/~hch/qla/QLA4-module_param-b7

	use new-style module_param() everywhere (works also for
	the compiled-in case).  The paramter naming is quite
	inconsistant and you have global variables like Bind
	that might cause quite some trouble in the non-modular
	case.  You should probably switch to module_param_named
	to always use nice lower_case, descriptive names
	(without the ql2x prefix) and map them to variables with
	a driver-prefix.

http://verein.lst.de/~hch/qla/QLA5-dbg-b7

	Move some debug defines from qla_def.h to qla_dbg.h

http://verein.lst.de/~hch/qla/QLA6-kmem_zalloc-b7

	Use kmalloc directly instead of qla2xxx_kmem_zalloc and
	associated wrappers.

http://verein.lst.de/~hch/qla/QLA7-misc-b7

	Misc changes that don't affect generated code.

RE: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[James Bottomley]

On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 19:15, Andrew Vasquez wrote:
> > A new version of the 8.x series driver for Linux 2.6.x kernels has
> > been uploaded to SourceForge: 
> > 
> > 	http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-qla2xxx/
> >
> 
> False start.  I've uploaded 8.00.00b8 to the SF site.  This driver
> instructs the mid-layer to perform its initial scan with
> scsi_scan_host().  During testing, I disable the scan.  Sorry for
> the confusion.

OK, I've begun the BK process again.

This driver is now in BK at

bk://linux-scsi.bkbits.net/scsi-qla2xxx-2.6

I didn't see any comments about Christoph's patches, so is it OK if I
apply them?

I plan to let it mature in it's own tree for a short while with the
object being to get it into the right shape for a 2.6 inclusion
candidate.

The two items we still need to do something about are:

- Multi Pathing.  This really doesn't belong in the kernel
- The odd ioctl set to the qla device...I'd much rather see something
more standard that all FC drivers can use.

James

RE: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Andrew Vasquez]

On Monday, December 29, 2003 9:33 AM, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 19:15, Andrew Vasquez wrote:
> > False start.  I've uploaded 8.00.00b8 to the SF site.  This driver
> > instructs the mid-layer to perform its initial scan with
> > scsi_scan_host().  During testing, I disable the scan.  Sorry for
> > the confusion.
> 
> OK, I've begun the BK process again.
> 
> This driver is now in BK at
> 
> bk://linux-scsi.bkbits.net/scsi-qla2xxx-2.6
> 
> I didn't see any comments about Christoph's patches, so is it OK if I
> apply them? 
>

Yes, I've been entrenched in several side projects.  I have a beta 9
ready for release which includes Christoph's patches as well as a
couple of other changes as a result of his comments (qla_fo.cfg,
exioct.h dependencies).  At this time though, I need to wait to
release until I receive another firmware drop.
 
> I plan to let it mature in it's own tree for a short while with the
> object being to get it into the right shape for a 2.6 inclusion
> candidate. 
> 
> The two items we still need to do something about are:
> 
> - Multi Pathing.  This really doesn't belong in the kernel
>

Yes, given the structure and form of recent patches, that certainly
does seem to be the case - which from QLogic's standpoint (now) seems
to be the proper path.  Just for clarification, given the structure of
the driver now (failover completely separated), inclusion of the
qla2xxx driver would exclude the following failover files:

	qla_fo.c qla_foln.c qla_cfg.c qla_cfgln.c

correct?

> - The odd ioctl set to the qla device...I'd much rather see something
> more standard that all FC drivers can use.
> 

Are you proposing to standardize a transport by which a user-space
application communicates with a driver (beyond IOCTLs), or, are you
suggesting there be some commonality in functional interfaces (i.e.
SNIA) for all FC drivers?

Look, IOCTLs were mainly used and built upon due the platform agnostic
nature of the interface.  All QLogic drivers (Linux, Solaris, Windows,
and Netware), use the platform's IOCTL interface with the QLogic
specific EXIOCT interfaces to pass information to/from user and driver
space.  Several user-space APIs were then created which use the EXIOCT
interface, SNIA (or HBAAPI), and several internal APIs, which are
ultimately used by all QLogic applications.

--
Andrew Vasquez

Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 08:47:51AM -0800, Andrew Vasquez wrote:
> Yes, given the structure and form of recent patches, that certainly
> does seem to be the case - which from QLogic's standpoint (now) seems
> to be the proper path.  Just for clarification, given the structure of
> the driver now (failover completely separated), inclusion of the
> qla2xxx driver would exclude the following failover files:
> 
> 	qla_fo.c qla_foln.c qla_cfg.c qla_cfgln.c
> 
> correct?

 + qla_inioct.c qla_xioct.c

and the associated headers for both the ioctl and failover code, of course

> > - The odd ioctl set to the qla device...I'd much rather see something
> > more standard that all FC drivers can use.
> > 
> 
> Are you proposing to standardize a transport by which a user-space
> application communicates with a driver (beyond IOCTLs), or, are you
> suggesting there be some commonality in functional interfaces (i.e.
> SNIA) for all FC drivers?

the SNIA HBA-API spec is completely broken.  But we should try to support
a sanitized subset of the spec using the transport class work that's
currently discussed on linux-scsi.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Mike Anderson]

Christoph Hellwig [hch@infradead.org] wrote:
> the SNIA HBA-API spec is completely broken.  But we should try to support
> a sanitized subset of the spec using the transport class work that's
> currently discussed on linux-scsi.
> 

This sounds good. It would seem that HBA API adapter and port
information through sysfs (libsysfs) should be doable through the
transport class.  Also some partial information of the other hba api
functions could be supported though other sysfs attributes but the sends
would still need to use the old interface.

-andmike
--
Michael Anderson
andmike@us.ibm.com

Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:33:36AM -0800, Mike Anderson wrote:
> This sounds good. It would seem that HBA API adapter and port
> information through sysfs (libsysfs) should be doable through the
> transport class.

Yes.

> Also some partial information of the other hba api
> functions could be supported though other sysfs attributes but the sends
> would still need to use the old interface.

With sends are you referring to function that support certain scsi
commands like report luns and report capacity?  We have a perfectly
fine interface for that and it's SG_IO.. 

Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Mike Anderson]

Christoph Hellwig [hch@infradead.org] wrote:
> > Also some partial information of the other hba api
> > functions could be supported though other sysfs attributes but the sends
> > would still need to use the old interface.
> 
> With sends are you referring to function that support certain scsi
> commands like report luns and report capacity?  We have a perfectly
> fine interface for that and it's SG_IO.. 

I was thinking about the fabric management functions section of the
spec. I would believe that the SG_IO should be able to handle the SCSI
information functions section (though I have used this interface very
little).

-andmike
--
Michael Anderson
andmike@us.ibm.com

Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:57:32AM -0800, Mike Anderson wrote:
> > With sends are you referring to function that support certain scsi
> > commands like report luns and report capacity?  We have a perfectly
> > fine interface for that and it's SG_IO.. 
> 
> I was thinking about the fabric management functions section of the
> spec.

Hmm, I don't remember those in the copy I have.  It appears there's
a V2 of the spec on the SNIA server now and I'll take a look at
what they are supposed to do.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Mike Anderson]

Christoph Hellwig [hch@infradead.org] wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:57:32AM -0800, Mike Anderson wrote:
> > > With sends are you referring to function that support certain scsi
> > > commands like report luns and report capacity?  We have a perfectly
> > > fine interface for that and it's SG_IO.. 
> > 
> > I was thinking about the fabric management functions section of the
> > spec.
> 
> Hmm, I don't remember those in the copy I have.  It appears there's
> a V2 of the spec on the SNIA server now and I'll take a look at
> what they are supposed to do.

Yes, I guess I should have mentioned that I was looking at v2.18 from
T11 (02-149v0.pdf).

-andmike
--
Michael Anderson
andmike@us.ibm.com

RE: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b7).

[Andrew Vasquez]

On Thursday, January 08, 2004 8:54 AM, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 08:47:51AM -0800, Andrew Vasquez wrote:
> > seems to be the proper path.  Just for clarification, given the
> > structure of the driver now (failover completely separated),
> > inclusion of the qla2xxx driver would exclude the following
> > failover files: 
> > 
> > 	qla_fo.c qla_foln.c qla_cfg.c qla_cfgln.c
> > 
> > correct?
> 
>  + qla_inioct.c qla_xioct.c
> 
> and the associated headers for both the ioctl and failover
> code, of course
>

Yes, no IOCTLs...
 
> > Are you proposing to standardize a transport by which a user-space
> > application communicates with a driver (beyond IOCTLs), or, are you
> > suggesting there be some commonality in functional interfaces (i.e.
> > SNIA) for all FC drivers?
> 
> the SNIA HBA-API spec is completely broken.  But we should
> try to support
> a sanitized subset of the spec using the transport class work that's
> currently discussed on linux-scsi.
>

I'll excuse myself from the API debate and take a look at the transport
class infrastructure being proposed.

--
Andrew Vasquez