ESOS Project Update (July 2014)

[Marc Smith]

Hi,

Its been a while since I've shared any updates with the group, so now's as good a time as any. Below is a list of the highlights that have occurred over the last year or so (in mostly chronological order, most recent at the top):

- Additional debugging options/features added to the .esos-debug kernel (kgdb and kdb support).

- Updated SCST resource agent (RA) to accept different ALUA states (for Master/Slave).

- Added support for Chelsio FCoE adapters (T4/T5) as SCST targets via Uwire package (build option).

- The 'esos_logs' file system will automatically expand into free space on boot so you can now fully utilize a 4+ GB USB flash drive.

- New installer script (install.vbs) for Windows platforms.

- Package archives are now produced as ".zip" files to accommodate non-Linux platforms.

- Kernel and SCST version bumps (new SCST includes 'COMPARE AND WRITE' supporting VAAI).

- Serial console support.

- Several TUI usability enhancements.

- Several enhancements to the "health check" script for checking PDs.

- Added makedumpfile for better kernel crash dump [capture] support.

- New "main screen" in the TUI that shows target information and basic session statistics.

- Lots of modifications to the ESOS build system: greater compatibility with other Linux distributions.

- ESOS can now be built with make jobs >1 (greatly reduces build time).

- Added support for gdb and valgrind as build options.

- Added support for the Emulex OCS SDK target driver (ocs_fc_scst) which supports Emulex Fibre Channel and FCoE adapters; this is an optional build and requires the OCS SDK from Emulex.

- Enabled kernel options to support virtualized environments (VMware + MS Hyper-V drivers).

- The "Add Initiator" dialog now allows you to select from visible initiators that the ESOS host can "see" (established sessions) instead of having to manually type them.

- Added support for performing an in-place upgrade of ESOS.

- A number of new software packages were added: GNU tar, NUT (UPS tools), NRPE, sysstat (for iostat), pcituils (for lspci), net-snmp (SNMP support -- work still needed), smartmontools, cryptsetup, ethtool, and support dependencies.

- New block layer add-ons: bcache, EnhanceIO, BTIER, and dm-cache.

- An agent for collecting performance stats and uploading them to an external database (MySQL, PostgreSQL): perf-agent (thanks Marcin).

- Added the StorCLI proprietary RAID CLI tools (for LSI Syncro controllers).

- Increased TUI functionality for Linux bonding and bridge interfaces.

What's next:

- I'm still pushing to create a stable branch of ESOS late this summer, or early fall. There are still a few things I want to wrap up before doing this (resolve any open issues/requests, more TUI code clean-up, update the wiki documentation, etc.).

- Once we have a stable branch, enhancing and growing the TUI will be a big focus. We have a very useful base system, but the UI needs a lot of TLC. Some TUI ideas I'm toying with: LVM storage provisioning functions, supporting all proprietary (hardware) RAID controllers via a wrapper to generalize/abstract the functions of each, performance/health monitoring statistics screens (eg, iostat like), and many more... lots of possibilities!

--Marc