linux-kernel - Re: Integration of SCST in the mainstream Linux kernel

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Message-ID: <20080204210121.GF18682@fieldses.org>
Date:	Mon, 4 Feb 2008 16:01:21 -0500
From:	"J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@...ldses.org>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	"Nicholas A. Bellinger" <nab@...ux-iscsi.org>,
	James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...senPartnership.com>,
	Vladislav Bolkhovitin <vst@...b.net>,
	Bart Van Assche <bart.vanassche@...il.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	FUJITA Tomonori <fujita.tomonori@....ntt.co.jp>,
	linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org, scst-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Mike Christie <michaelc@...wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: Integration of SCST in the mainstream Linux kernel

On Mon, Feb 04, 2008 at 11:44:31AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
...
> Pure user-space solutions work, but tend to eventually be turned into 
> kernel-space if they are simple enough and really do have throughput and 
> latency considerations (eg nfsd), and aren't quite complex and crazy 
> enough to have a large impedance-matching problem even for basic IO stuff 
> (eg samba).
...
> So just going by what has happened in the past, I'd assume that iSCSI 
> would eventually turn into "connecting/authentication in user space" with 
> "data transfers in kernel space". But only if it really does end up 
> mattering enough. We had a totally user-space NFS daemon for a long time, 
> and it was perfectly fine until people really started caring.

I'd assumed the move was primarily because of the difficulty of getting
correct semantics on a shared filesystem--if you're content with
NFS-only access to your filesystem, then you can probably do everything
in userspace, but once you start worrying about getting stable
filehandles, consistent file locking, etc., from a real disk filesystem
with local users, then you require much closer cooperation from the
kernel.

And I seem to recall being told that sort of thing was the motivation
more than performance, but I wasn't there (and I haven't seen
performance comparisons).

--b.
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