scst/scst

Generic SCSI target mid-level for Linux (SCST)
==============================================

Version 0.9.6, XX XXX 200X
--------------------------

SCST is designed to provide unified, consistent interface between SCSI
target drivers and Linux kernel and simplify target drivers development
as much as possible. Detail description of SCST's features and internals
could be found in "Generic SCSI Target Middle Level for Linux" document
SCST's Internet page http://scst.sourceforge.net.

SCST supports the following I/O modes:

 * Pass-through mode with one to many relationship, i.e. when multiple
   initiators can connect to the exported pass-through devices, for   
   the following SCSI devices types: disks (type 0), tapes (type 1),
   processors (type 3), CDROMs (type 5), MO disks (type 7), medium
   changers (type 8) and RAID controllers (type 0xC)

 * FILEIO mode, which allows to use files on file systems or block
   devices as virtual remotely available SCSI disks or CDROMs with
   benefits of the Linux page cache

 * BLOCKIO mode, which performs direct block IO with a block device,
   bypassing page-cache for all operations. This mode works ideally with
   high-end storage HBAs and for applications that either do not need
   caching between application and disk or need the large block
   throughput

 * User space mode using scst_user device handler, which allows to
   implement in the user space virtual SCSI devices in the SCST
   environment

 * "Performance" device handlers, which provide in pseudo pass-through
   mode a way for direct performance measurements without overhead of
   actual data transferring from/to underlying SCSI device

In addition, SCST supports advanced per-initiator access and devices
visibility management, so different initiators could see different set
of devices with different access permissions. See below for details.

This is quite stable (but still beta) version.

Tested mostly on "vanilla" 2.6.21.1 kernel from kernel.org.

Installation
------------

At first, make sure that the link "/lib/modules/`you_kernel_version`/build" 
points to the source code for your currently running kernel.

Then, since in the mainstream kernels scsi_do_req()/scsi_execute_async()
work in LIFO order, instead of expected and required FIFO, SCST needs a
new functions scsi_do_req_fifo()/scsi_execute_async_fifo() to be added
in the kernel. Patch scst_exec_req_fifo.patch from "kernel" directory
does that. If it doesn't apply to your kernel, apply it manually, it
only adds one of those functions and nothing more. You may not patch the
kernel if you don't need pass-through support or STRICT_SERIALIZING is
defined during the compilation (see description below).

To compile SCST type 'make scst'. It will build SCST itself and its
device handlers. To install them type 'make scst_install'. The driver
modules will be installed in '/lib/modules/`you_kernel_version`/extra'.
In addition, scsi_tgt.h, scst_debug.h as well as Module.symvers or
Modules.symvers will be copied to '/usr/local/include/scst'. The first
file contains all SCST's public data definition, which are used by
target drivers. The other ones support debug messages logging and build
process.

Then you can load any module by typing 'modprobe module_name'. The names
are:

 - scst - SCST itself
 - scst_disk - device handler for disks (type 0)
 - scst_tape - device handler for tapes (type 1)
 - scst_processor - device handler for processors (type 3)
 - scst_cdrom - device handler for CDROMs (type 5)
 - scst_modisk - device handler for MO disks (type 7)
 - scst_changer - device handler for medium changers (type 8)
 - scst_raid - device handler for storage array controller (e.g. raid) (type C)
 - scst_vdisk - device handler for virtual disks (file, device or ISO CD image).
 - scst_user - user space device handler

Then, to see your devices remotely, you need to add them to at least
"Default" security group (see below how). By default, no local devices
are seen remotely. There must be LUN 0 in each security group, i.e. LUs
numeration must not start from, e.g., 1.

IMPORTANT: Without loading appropriate device handler, corresponding devices
=========  will be invisible for remote initiators, which could lead to holes
           in the LUN addressing, so automatic device scanning by remote SCSI 
           mid-level could not notice the devices. Therefore you will have 
	   to add them manually via 
	   'echo "scsi add-single-device A 0 0 B" >/proc/scsi/scsi',
	   where A - is the host number, B - LUN.

IMPORTANT: Experience shows that if people work with out of SCST tree target
=========  drivers, like target driver for Infiniband or in case if they
           downloaded and use the released versions of SCST and target
	   drivers, they are too often (actually, almost always) after
	   upgrading SCST core forget to rebuild their target drivers,
	   which then immediately after load crash in the hard to trace
	   manner. So, after you reinstalled SCST core don't forget to
	   rebuild and reinstall all your target drivers, custom dev
	   handlers and necessary user space applications.

IMPORTANT: In the current version simultaneous access to local SCSI devices
=========  via standard high-level SCSI drivers (sd, st, sg, etc.) and
           SCST's target drivers is unsupported. Especially it is
	   important for execution via sg and st commands that change
	   the state of devices and their parameters, because that could
	   lead to data corruption. If any such command is done, at
	   least related device handler(s) must be restarted. For block
	   devices READ/WRITE commands using direct disk handler look to
	   be safe.

To uninstall, type 'make scst_uninstall'.

If you install QLA2x00 target driver's source code in this directory,
then you can build, install or uninstall it by typing 'make qla', 'make
qla_install' or 'make qla_uninstall' correspondingly. For more details
about QLA2x00 target drivers see their README files.

Device handlers
---------------

Device specific drivers (device handlers) are plugins for SCST, which
help SCST to analyze incoming requests and determine parameters,
specific to various types of devices. If an appropriate device handler
for a SCSI device type isn't loaded, SCST doesn't know how to handle
devices of this type, so they will be invisible for remote initiators
(more precisely, "LUN not supported" sense code will be returned).

In addition to device handlers for real devices, there are VDISK, user
space and "performance" device handlers.

VDISK device handler works over files on file systems and makes from
them virtual remotely available SCSI disks or CDROM's. In addition, it
allows to work directly over a block device, e.g. local IDE or SCSI disk
or ever disk partition, where there is no file systems overhead. Using
block devices comparing to sending SCSI commands directly to SCSI
mid-level via scsi_do_req()/scsi_execute_async() has advantage that data
are transferred via system cache, so it is possible to fully benefit from
caching and read ahead performed by Linux's VM subsystem. The only
disadvantage here that in the FILEIO mode there is superfluous data
copying between the cache and SCST's buffers. This issue is going to be
addressed in the next release. Virtual CDROM's are useful for remote
installation. See below for details how to setup and use VDISK device
handler.

SCST user space device handler provides an interface between SCST and
the user space, which allows to create pure user space devices. The
simplest example, where one would want it is if he/she wants to write a
VTL. With scst_user he/she can write it purely in the user space. Or one
would want it if he/she needs some sophisticated for kernel space
processing of the passed data, like encrypting them or making snapshots. 

"Performance" device handlers for disks, MO disks and tapes in their
exec() method skip (pretend to execute) all READ and WRITE operations
and thus provide a way for direct link performance measurements without
overhead of actual data transferring from/to underlying SCSI device.

NOTE: Since "perf" device handlers on READ operations don't touch the
====  commands' data buffer, it is returned to remote initiators as it
      was allocated, without even being zeroed. Thus, "perf" device
      handlers impose some security risk, so use them with caution.

Compilation options
-------------------

There are the following compilation options, that could be commented
in/out in Makefile:

 - DEBUG - turns on some debugging code, including some logging. Makes
   the driver considerably bigger and slower, producing large amount of
   log data.

 - TRACING - turns on ability to log events. Makes the driver considerably
   bigger and lead to some performance loss.

 - EXTRACHECKS - adds extra validity checks in the various places.

 - DEBUG_TM - turns on task management functions debugging, when on
   LUN 0 in the default access control group some of the commands will
   be delayed for about 60 sec., so making the remote initiator send TM
   functions, eg ABORT TASK and TARGET RESET. Also set TM_DBG_GO_OFFLINE
   symbol in the Makefile to 1 if you want that the device eventually
   become completely unresponsive, or to 0 otherwise to circle around
   ABORTs and RESETs code. Needs DEBUG turned on.

 - STRICT_SERIALIZING - makes SCST send all commands to underlying SCSI
   device synchronously, one after one. This makes task management more
   reliable, with cost of some performance penalty. This is mostly
   actual for stateful SCSI devices like tapes, where the result of
   command's execution depends from device's settings set by previous
   commands. Disk and RAID devices are stateless in the most cases. The
   current SCSI core in Linux doesn't allow to abort all commands
   reliably if they sent asynchronously to a stateful device. Turned off
   by default, turn it on if you use stateful device(s) and need as much
   error recovery reliability as possible. As a side effect, no kernel
   patching is necessary.

 - SCST_HIGHMEM - if defined on HIGHMEM systems with 2.6 kernels, it
   allows SCST to use HIGHMEM. This is very experimental feature, which
   is currently broken and unsupported, since it is unclear, if it
   brings something valuable, except some performance hit. Note, that
   SCST_HIGHMEM isn't required for HIGHMEM systems and SCST will work
   fine on them with SCST_HIGHMEM off.
  
 - SCST_STRICT_SECURITY - if defined, makes SCST zero allocated data
   buffers. Undefining it (default) considerably improves performance
   and eases CPU load, but could create a security hole (information
   leakage), so enable it, if you have strict security requirements.

HIGHMEM kernel configurations are fully supported, but not recommended
for performance reasons, except for scst_user, where they are not
supported, because this module deals with user supplied memory on a
zero-copy manner. Consider change VMSPLIT option or use 64-bit system
configuration instead.

For changing VMSPLIT option (CONFIG_VMSPLIT to be precise) you should in
"make menuconfig" command set the following variables:

 - General setup->Configure standard kernel features (for small systems): ON

 - Processor type and features->High Memory Support: OFF

 - Processor type and features->Memory split: according to amount of
   memory you have. If it is less than 800MB, you may not touch this
   option at all.

Module parameters
-----------------

Module scst supports the following parameters:

 - scst_threads - allows to set count of SCST's threads. By default it
   is CPU count.

 - scst_max_cmd_mem - sets maximum amount of memory in Mb allowed to be
   consumed by the SCST commands for data buffers at any given time. By
   default it is approximately TotalMem/4.

SCST "/proc" commands
---------------------

For communications with user space programs SCST provides proc-based
interface in "/proc/scsi_tgt" directory. It contains the following
entries:

  - "help" file, which provides online help for SCST commands
  
  - "scsi_tgt" file, which on read provides information of serving by SCST
    devices and their dev handlers. On write it supports the following
    command:
    
      * "assign H:C:I:L HANDLER_NAME" assigns dev handler "HANDLER_NAME" 
        on device with host:channel:id:lun

  - "sessions" file, which lists currently connected initiators (open sessions)

  - "sgv" file provides some statistic about with which block sizes
    commands from remote initiators come and how effective sgv_pool in
    serving those allocations from the cache, i.e. without memory
    allocations requests to the kernel. "Size" - is the commands data
    size upper rounded to power of 2, "Hit" - how many there are
    allocations from the cache, "Total" - total number of allocations.
	
  - "threads" file, which allows to read and set number of SCST's threads
  
  - "version" file, which shows version of SCST
  
  - "trace_level" file, which allows to read and set trace (logging) level
    for SCST. See "help" file for list of trace levels.

Each dev handler has own subdirectory. Most dev handler have only two
files in this subdirectory: "trace_level" and "type". The first one is
similar to main SCST "trace_level" file, the latter one shows SCSI type
number of this handler as well as some text description.

For example, "echo "assign 1:0:1:0 dev_disk" >/proc/scsi_tgt/scsi_tgt"
will assign device handler "dev_disk" to real device sitting on host 1,
channel 0, ID 1, LUN 0.

Access and devices visibility management (LUN masking)
------------------------------------------------------

Access and devices visibility management allows for an initiator or
group of initiators to have different limited set of LUs/LUNs (security
group) each with appropriate access permissions. Initiator is
represented as a SCST session. Session is bound to security group on its
registration time by character "name" parameter of the registration
function, which provided by target driver, based on its internal
authentication. For example, for FC "name" could be WWN or just loop ID.
For iSCSI this could be iSCSI login credentials or iSCSI initiator name.
Each security group has set of names assigned to it by system
administrator. Session is bound to security group with provided name. If
no such groups found, the session bound to either "Default_target_name",
or "Default" group, depending from either "Default_target_name" exists
or not. In "Default_target_name" target name means name of the target.

In /proc/scsi_tgt each group represented as "groups/GROUP_NAME/"
subdirectory. In it there are files "devices" and "users". File
"devices" lists all devices and their LUNs in the group, file "users"
lists all names that should be bound to this group.

To configure access and devices visibility management SCST provides the
following files and directories under /proc/scsi_tgt:

  - "add_group GROUP" to /proc/scsi_tgt/scsi_tgt adds group "GROUP"
  
  - "del_group GROUP" to /proc/scsi_tgt/scsi_tgt deletes group "GROUP"
  
  - "add H:C:I:L lun [READ_ONLY]" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/devices adds 
    device with host:channel:id:lun as LUN "lun" in group "GROUP". Optionally,
    the device could be marked as read only.
  
  - "del H:C:I:L" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/devices deletes device with
    host:channel:id:lun from group "GROUP"
  
  - "add V_NAME lun [READ_ONLY]" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/devices adds
    device with virtual name "V_NAME" as LUN "lun" in group "GROUP".
    Optionally, the device could be marked as read only.
  
  - "del V_NAME" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/devices deletes device with
    virtual name "V_NAME" from group "GROUP"
  
  - "clear" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/devices clears the list of devices
    for group "GROUP"
  
  - "add NAME" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/names adds name "NAME" to group 
    "GROUP"
  
  - "del NAME" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/names deletes name "NAME" from group 
    "GROUP"
  
  - "clear" to /proc/scsi_tgt/groups/GROUP/names clears the list of names
    for group "GROUP"

Examples:

 - "echo "add 1:0:1:0 0" >/proc/scsi_tgt/groups/Default/devices" will
 add real device sitting on host 1, channel 0, ID 1, LUN 0 to "Default"
 group with LUN 0.

 - "echo "add disk1 1" >/proc/scsi_tgt/groups/Default/devices" will
 add virtual VDISK device with name "disk1" to "Default" group
 with LUN 1. 

VDISK device handler
--------------------

After loading VDISK device handler creates in "/proc/scsi_tgt/"
subdirectories "vdisk" and "vcdrom". They have similar layout:

  - "trace_level" and "type" files as described for other dev handlers
  
  - "help" file, which provides online help for VDISK commands
  
  - "vdisk"/"vcdrom" files, which on read provides information of
    currently open device files. On write it supports the following
    command:
    
    * "open NAME [PATH] [BLOCK_SIZE] [FLAGS]" - opens file "PATH" as
      device "NAME" with block size "BLOCK_SIZE" bytes with flags
      "FLAGS". "PATH" could be empty only for VDISK CDROM. "BLOCK_SIZE"
      and "FLAGS" are valid only for disk VDISK. The block size must be
      power of 2 and >= 512 bytes. Default is 512. Possible flags:
      
      - WRITE_THROUGH - write back caching disabled
      
      - READ_ONLY - read only
      
      - O_DIRECT - both read and write caching disabled. This mode
        isn't currently fully implemented, you should use user space
	fileio_tgt program in O_DIRECT mode instead (see below).

      - NULLIO - in this mode no real IO will be done, but success will be
        returned. Intended to be used for performance measurements at the same
        way as "*_perf" handlers.

      - NV_CACHE - enables "non-volatile cache" mode. In this mode it is
        assumed that the target has GOOD UPS and software/hardware bug
	free, i.e. all data from the target's cache are guaranteed
	sooner or later to go to the media, hence all data
	synchronization with media operations, like SYNCHRONIZE_CACHE,
	are ignored (BTW, so violating SCSI standard) in order to bring
	a bit more performance. Use with extreme caution, since in this
	mode after a crash of the target journaled file systems don't
	guarantee the consistency after journal recovery, therefore
	manual fsck MUST be ran. The main intent for it is to determine
	the performance impact caused by the cache synchronization.
	Note, that since usually the journal barrier protection (see
	"IMPORTANT" below) turned off, enabling NV_CACHE could change
	nothing, since no data synchronization with media operations
	will go from the initiator.

      - BLOCKIO - enables block mode, which will perform direct block
        IO with a block device, bypassing page-cache for all operations.
	This mode works ideally with high-end storage HBAs and for
	applications that either do not need caching between application
	and disk or need the large block throughput. See also below.
    
    * "close NAME" - closes device "NAME".

    * "change NAME [PATH]" - changes a virtual CD in the VDISK CDROM.

For example, "echo "open disk1 /vdisks/disk1" >/proc/scsi_tgt/vdisk/vdisk"
will open file /vdisks/disk1 as virtual VDISK disk with name "disk1".

IMPORTANT: By default for performance reasons VDISK FILEIO devices use write
=========  back caching policy. This is generally safe from the consistence of
           journaled file systems, laying over them, point of view, but
	   your unsaved cached data will be lost in case of
	   power/hardware/software failure, so you must supply your
	   target server with some kind of UPS or disable write back
	   caching using WRITE_THROUGH flag. You also should note, that
	   the file systems journaling over write back caching enabled
	   devices works reliably *ONLY* if the order of journal writes
	   is guaranteed or it uses some kind of data protection
	   barriers (i.e. after writing journal data some kind of
	   synchronization with media operations is used), otherwise,
	   because of possible reordering in the cache, even after
	   successful journal rollback, you very much risk to loose your
	   data on the FS. Currently, Linux IO subsystem guarantees
	   order of write operations only using data protection
	   barriers. Some info about it from the XFS point of view could
	   be found at http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/faq.html#wcache.
	   On Linux initiators for EXT3 and ReiserFS file systems the
	   barrier protection could be turned on using "barrier=1" and
	   "barrier=flush" mount options correspondingly. Note, that
	   usually it turned off by default and the status of barriers
	   usage isn't reported anywhere in the system logs as well as
	   there is no way to know it on the mounted file system (at
	   least no known one). Also note that on some real-life
	   workloads write through caching might perform better, than
	   write back one with the barrier protection turned on.

IMPORTANT: Many disk and partition table management utilities don't support
=========  block sizes >512 bytes, therefore make sure that your favorite one
           supports it. Also, if you export disk file or device with
	   some block size, different from one, with which it was
	   already divided on partitions, you could get various weird
	   things like utilities hang up or other unexpected behavior.
	   Hence, to be sure, zero the exported file or device before the
	   first access to it from the remote initiator with another
	   block size.

BLOCKIO VDISK mode
------------------

This module works best for these types of scenarios:

1) Data that are not aligned to 4K sector boundaries and <4K block sizes
are used, which is normally found in virtualization environments where
operating systems start partitions on odd sectors (Windows and it's
sector 63).

2) Large block data transfers normally found in database loads/dumps and
streaming media.

3) Advanced relational database systems that perform their own caching
which prefer or demand direct IO access and, because of the nature of
their data access, can actually see worse performance with
non-discriminate caching.

4) Multiple layers of targets were the secondary/triary layers need to
have a consistent view of the primary targets in order to preserve data
integrity which a page cache backed IO type might not provide reliably.

Also it has an advantage over FILEIO that it doesn't copy data between
the system cache and the commands data buffers, so it saves a
considerable amount of CPU power and memory bandwidth.

IMPORTANT: Since data in BLOCKIO and FILEIO modes are not consistent between
=========  them, if you try to use a device in both those modes simultaneously,
           you will almost instantly corrupt your data on that device.

Pass-through mode
-----------------

In the pass-through mode (i.e. using the pass-through device handlers
scst_disk, scst_tape, etc) SCSI commands, coming from remote initiators,
are passed to local SCSI hardware on target as is, without any
modifications. As any other hardware, the local SCSI hardware can not
handle commands with amount of data and/or segments count in
scatter-gather array bigger some values. Therefore, when using the
pass-through mode you should note that values for maximum number of
segments and maximum amount of transferred data for each SCSI command on
devices on initiators can not be bigger, than corresponding values of
the corresponding SCSI devices on the target. Otherwise you will see
symptoms like small transfers work well, but large ones stall and
messages like: "Unable to complete command due to SG IO count
limitation" are printed in the kernel logs.

You can't control from the user space limit of the scatter-gather
segments, but for block devices usually it is sufficient if you set on
the initiators /sys/block/DEVICE_NAME/queue/max_sectors_kb in the same
or lower value as in /sys/block/DEVICE_NAME/queue/max_hw_sectors_kb for
the corresponding devices on the target.

For not-block devices SCSI commands are usually generated directly by
applications, so, if you experience large transfers stalls, you should
check documentation for your application how to limit the transfer
sizes.

User space mode using scst_user dev handler
-------------------------------------------

User space program fileio_tgt uses interface of scst_user dev handler
and allows to see how it work in various modes. Fileio_tgt provides
mostly the same functionality as scst_vdisk handler with the only
exceptions that it has implemented O_DIRECT mode and doesn't support
BLOCKIO one. O_DIRECT mode is basically the same as BLOCKIO, but also
supports files, so for some loads it could be significantly faster, than
regular FILEIO access. All the words about BLOCKIO from above apply to
O_DIRECT as well. While running fileio_tgt if you don't understand some
its options, use defaults for them, those values are the fastest.

Performance
-----------

Before doing any performance measurements note that:

I. Performance results are very much dependent from your type of load,
so it is crucial that you choose access mode (FILEIO, BLOCKIO,
O_DIRECT, pass-through), which suits your needs the best.

II. In order to get the maximum performance you should:

1. For SCST:

 - Disable in Makefile STRICT_SERIALIZING, EXTRACHECKS, TRACING, DEBUG*,
   SCST_STRICT_SECURITY, SCST_HIGHMEM

2. For target drivers:

 - Disable in Makefiles EXTRACHECKS, TRACING, DEBUG*

3. For device handlers, including VDISK:

 - Disable in Makefile TRACING, DEBUG

 - If your initiator(s) use dedicated exported from the target virtual
   SCSI devices and have more or equal amount of memory, than the
   target, it is recommended to use O_DIRECT option (currently it is
   available only with fileio_tgt user space program) or BLOCKIO. With
   them you could have up to 100% increase in throughput.

IMPORTANT: Some of the compilation options enabled by default, i.e. SCST
=========  is optimized currently rather for development and bug hunting,
           not for performance.

4. For kernel:

 - Don't enable debug/hacking features, i.e. use them as they are by
   default.

 - The default kernel read-ahead and queuing settings are optimized
   for locally attached disks, therefore they are not optimal if they
   attached remotely (SCSI target case), which sometimes could lead to
   unexpectedly low throughput. You should increase read-ahead size to at
   least 512KB or even more on all initiators and the target.
   
   You should also limit on all initiators maximum amount of sectors per
   SCSI command. To do it on Linux initiators, run:
  
   echo “64” > /sys/block/sdX/queue/max_sectors_kb

   where specify instead of X your imported from target device letter,
   like 'b', i.e. sdb.

   To increase read-ahead size on Linux, run:
  
   blockdev --setra N /dev/sdX

   where N is a read-ahead number in 512-byte sectors and X is a device
   letter like above.

   Note: you need to set read-ahead setting for device sdX again after
   you changed the maximum amount of sectors per SCSI command for that
   device.

 - You may need to increase amount of requests that OS on initiator
   sends to the target device. To do it on Linux initiators, run

   echo “512” > /sys/block/sdX/queue/nr_requests

   where X is a device letter like above.

   You may also experiment with other parameters in /sys/block/sdX
   directory, they also affect performance. If you find the best values,
   please share them with us.

 - Use on the target deadline IO scheduler with read_expire and
   write_expire increased on all exported devices to 5000 and 20000
   correspondingly.

 - It is recommended to turn the kernel preemption off, i.e. set
   the kernel preemption model to "No Forced Preemption (Server)".

5. For hardware.

 - Make sure that your target hardware (e.g. target FC card) and underlaying
   IO hardware (e.g. IO card, like SATA, SCSI or RAID to which your
   disks connected) stay on different PCI buses. They have to work in
   parallel, so it will be better if they don't compete for the bus. The
   problem is not only in the bandwidth, which they have to share, but
   also in the interaction between cards during that competition. In
   some cases it could lead up to 5-10 times less performance, than
   expected.

IMPORTANT: If you use on initiator some versions of Windows (at least W2K)
=========  you can't get good write performance for VDISK FILEIO devices with
           default 512 bytes block sizes. You could get about 10% of the
	   expected one. This is because of partition alignment, which
	   is (simplifying) incompatible with how Linux page cache
	   works, so for each write the corresponding block must be read
	   first. Use 4096 bytes block sizes for VDISK devices and you
	   will have the expected write performance. Actually, any OS on
	   initiators, not only Windows, will benefit from block size
	   max(PAGE_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE_ON_UNDERLYING_FS), where PAGE_SIZE
	   is the page size, BLOCK_SIZE_ON_UNDERLYING_FS is block size
	   on the underlying FS, on which the device file located, or 0,
	   if a device node is used. Both values are from the target.
	   See also important notes about setting block sizes >512 bytes
	   for VDISK FILEIO devices above.

Credits
-------

Thanks to:

 * Mark Buechler <mark.buechler@gmail.com> for a lot of useful
   suggestions, bug reports and help in debugging.

 * Ming Zhang <mingz@ele.uri.edu> for fixes and comments.
 
 * Nathaniel Clark <nate@misrule.us> for fixes and comments.

 * Calvin Morrow <calvin.morrow@comcast.net> for testing and useful
   suggestions.

 * Hu Gang <hugang@soulinfo.com> for the original version of the
   LSI target driver.

 * Erik Habbinga <erikhabbinga@inphase-tech.com> for fixes and support
   of the LSI target driver.

 * Ross S. W. Walker <rswwalker@hotmail.com> for the original block IO
   code and Vu Pham <huongvp@yahoo.com> who updated it for the VDISK dev
   handler.

 * Michael G. Byrnes <michael.byrnes@hp.com> for fixes.

 * Alessandro Premoli <a.premoli@andxor.it> for fixes

 * Nathan Bullock <nbullock@yottayotta.com> for fixes.

 * Terry Greeniaus <tgreeniaus@yottayotta.com> for fixes.

Vladislav Bolkhovitin <vst@vlnb.net>, http://scst.sourceforge.net