RE: iSCSI Boot Last Call - Technical Comments

[pat_thaler@agilent.com]

Mark,

The sentence at the beginning of 5: "This stage is required if the DHCP server (v4 or v6) is unaware of the iSCSI Target Port Name of the iSCSI boot server." is incorrect even if one changes iSCSI Target Port Name to iSCSI Target Name. 

If the DHCP server supplies an iSCSI Target Port Name, then the booting device still needs to use the Discovery stage to convert that name into an address. The only cases where Discovery stage could be skipped is when the DHCP server supplies a servername or where the boot target address is configured into the boot client. The servername doesn't require discovery stage because it is either an IP address or a domain name that the DNS server can convert ot an IP address.

Pat

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Bakke [mailto:mbakke@cisco.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 3:34 PM
To: pat_thaler@agilent.com
Cc: psarkar@almaden.ibm.com; duncan_missimer@hp.com;
csapuntz@stanford.edu; erodrigu@Brocade.COM; Black_David@emc.com;
ips@ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: iSCSI Boot Last Call - Technical Comments



Pat,

On #5, I think that this should say "iSCSI Target Name"; as you said,
portal groups are not necessary for boot.

Mark



pat_thaler@agilent.com wrote:
> 
> Technical
> 
> 4. last two paragraphs:
>    "If the "servername" field is provided by DHCP, then that field is
>    used in conjunction with other associated fields to contact the boot
>    server in the Boot stage (Section 6).
> 
>    However, if the "servername" field is not provided, then the
>    "targetname" field is then used in the Discovery Service stage
>    (Section 5)."
> 
> Shouldn't the second paragraph say "is used in conjunction with the other associated fields"? "targetname" doesn't provide the LUN or protocol. The "port" field is may be relevant because the Target address needs to be fetched and will include port if necessary.
> 
> 5. first paragraph "if the DHCP server ... is unaware of the iSCSI Target Port Name" What does Target port name (defined as iSCSI Target Name together with a label that idenifies it as a target port name and the portal group tag) have to do with this? The DHCP server string definition doesn't include a Target port
 name and even if it did, the discovery service stage would be necessary to convert that into an
address. The discovery service stage is required if the DHCP server provided a target name because
it converts target name to an IP address and port number. It is also required if the DHCP server
didn't provide an iSCSI string.
> 
> Reference [17]: Can a URL be used as a reference? Intel could change the structure of their website and the URL would no longer locate the document. It would be better to reference a document title.
> 
> Editorial
> 
> 4. 5 paragraphs from the end, "several different LU" should be "several different LUs"
> 
> 4. 3 paragraphs from the end, except for the sentence "If the "servername" field is blank ....", all the other statements about defaults are duplicates of statements in the paragraphs where the fields were defined. Moving the statement about servername to the servername paragraphs above and deleting this paragraph.

-- 
Mark A. Bakke
Cisco Systems
mbakke@cisco.com
763.398.1054