From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 7 00:51:00 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 59DF5106566B for ; Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:51:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from john@jnielsen.net) Received: from ns1.jnielsen.net (ns1.jnielsen.net [69.55.238.237]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3D3BE8FC15 for ; Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:51:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from john@jnielsen.net) Received: from [192.168.5.128] (jn@stealth.jnielsen.net [74.218.226.254]) (authenticated bits=0) by ns1.jnielsen.net (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id m270ETZn026231; Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:14:33 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from john@jnielsen.net) From: John Nielsen To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:14:28 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200803061914.28851.john@jnielsen.net> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.88.4, clamav-milter version 0.88.4 on ns1.jnielsen.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: Pete French Subject: Re: ggated vs iscsi X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:51:00 -0000 On Thursday 06 March 2008 04:53:55 pm Pete French wrote: > I want to take a disc partition on one box and make it available to > another box to be mounted. Under 7.0 it looks like I have a choice > of using either ggated to do this, or the new iscsis initiator. Does > anyone have any opinions on what is most reliable ? Instyinct says > iscsi as I have used that in the past, but I havent used the new > initiator yet. Any advice ? Keep in mind that with ggate you'll need ggated on the exporting machine and ggatec on the other. Likewise with iSCSI you'll need the a _target_ (such as the one in net/iscsi-target) and an initiator, which you get in the base system starting with FreeBSD 7. Last time I used it the iscsi-target port had some significant bugs, but looking through cvs it looks like those may have been addressed. I can't really speak to performance. Reliability should be all right as long as you don't have frequent network issues. Ggate takes a bit of tweaking and system tuning to get to work right, but works pretty well once you get there. It has the advantage of being very simple to configure and in that regard it might be a good match for your 1:1 exporter/importer setup (although iSCSI isn't that complex, and it sounds like you've used it before). Performance is generally good. Reliability is fair in my experience as long as the network is solid. I don't think ggate does any kind of automatic reconnect (unlike iSCSI), but I've seen simple setups go for months without a hiccup. My best advice would be to try both at least briefly. Do some performance testing, see what happens when you unplug the network (or simulate other interruptions), etc. JN