Setting up a Target
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Setting up a Target

Using the Linux iSCSI Target Implemention from Ardis Technologies we can create iSCSI targets on any Linux system which can be accessed from the iSCSI initiator we'll set up in the next section. A system that will make targets available only needs some partition to be available for export, and it does not need to be a SCSI disk.

Changes to the Ardis Target Implementation

Ming Zhang was nice enough to inform me that he and several others have forked the Ardis codebase and are adding significant improvements to the target implementation. The new projected is called the iSCSI Enterprise Target project.

Ming and his team are doing some really great work and they deserve the respect and appreciation of the whole community. Future revisions of this document will be based solely on the new implementation.

The following are the steps to setup an iSCSI target.

Procedure 1. Setting up an ISCSI Target

  1. Download the iSCSI Target code from: http://www.ardistech.com/iscsi/

    Warning

    I had problems with the 20040211 release, when loading the modules I'd get unresolved symbols. Using the January released worked fine.

  2. Download and configure (make menuconfig) a Linux 2.4.22 kernel. Patch the kernel with the diff in the target code (ie: kernel.2.4.22.diff). 

    [benr@nexus linux-2.4.22]$ patch -p0 < 
	../linux-iscsi-target-20040116/kernel.2.4.22.diff 
patching file include/linux/mm.h
patching file include/linux/pagemap.h
patching file kernel/ksyms.c
patching file mm/filemap.c
[benr@nexus linux-2.4.22]$

  3. There are no iSCSI options you need to select except to have the normal SCSI driver built. Just build and install your kernel in the usual way. Then boot it.

  4. Next, build the target module and tools source. You'll need to define the environmental variable KERNELSRC to point to the location of the kernel tree you patched and installed. 

    [benr@nexus linux-iscsi-target-20040116]$ make        
set $KERNELSRC!
[benr@nexus linux-iscsi-target-20040116]$ export KERNELSRC=../linux-2.4.22
[benr@nexus linux-iscsi-target-20040116]$ make
 ( ... Removed for clarity ... )
[benr@nexus linux-iscsi-target-20040116]$ make install
 ( ... Removed for clarity ... )

    This will install the iSCSI target module (iscsi_trgt_mod.o) into /lib/modules and the target daemon (iscsi_trgtd) into /usr/sbin.

  5. Copy the iscsid.config file to /etc, and edit it to meet your needs. 

    [benr@nexus /etc]$ cat iscsid.config
## iSCSId Target Configuration File
User benr

Target iqn.1997-06.com.homestead:storage.disk1.nexus
        User
        # Lun definition
        # (right now only block devices are possible)
        Lun 0 /dev/sdb
        # Alias name for this target
        Alias Test


Target iqn.1997-06.com.homestead:storage.disk2.drew
        User
        # Lun definition
        # (right now only block devices are possible)
        Lun 0 /dev/sdc
        # Alias name for this target
        Alias NTFS

  6. Copy the iscsid.rc to /etc/init.d/iscsid and make it executable.

  7. Now, you should be able to start the iSCSI Targets. 

    [root@nexus /root]# /etc/init.d/iscsid start
Starting iSCSI target.
[root@nexus /root]#

As defined in the above procedure, according to my iscsid.conf, I'm offering 2 iSCSI targets. I can use these target names later when I connect to them with an initiator.

Keep an eye on the syslog when you start the iSCSI Target Daemon (tail -f /var/log/messages) to watch for startup messages and any warnings.

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