CFISCSI(4)

📦 version 12.2, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 CFISCSI(4) — Kernel Interfaces Manual 💖

okay bestie, buckle up, because this one is cfiscsi — the CAM Target Layer iSCSI target frontend. yes that's a lot of words. no i will not be normal about it. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

cfiscsi — CAM Target Layer iSCSI target frontend

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

so you want this driver in your kernel, right? then you gotta put these lines in your kernel configuration file, exactly like this, no notes:

device cfiscsi
device ctl
device iscsi

or — hear me out — you can load it as a module at boot time instead, in which case you drop this one single line into loader.conf(5):

cfiscsi_load="YES"

that's it. that's the whole vibe check. 🫶

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

the cfiscsi subsystem is the kernel component of an iSCSI target. and yes, the target is the iSCSI server — it's the one handing out LUNs backed by local files and volumes to remote initiators. main character energy, honestly.

the userspace half of this whole situation is provided by ctld(8). and cfiscsi? it's implemented as a ctl(4) frontend, and it uses the infrastructure that iscsi(4) brings to the table. teamwork makes the dream work. 🌈

⭐ SYSCTL VARIABLES ⭐

these bad boys are available both as sysctl(8) variables and as loader(8) tunables. double duty, we love to see it:

  • kern.cam.ctl.iscsi.debug — the verbosity level for log messages coming out of the kernel part of the iSCSI target. set it to 0 to turn logging off completely, or to 1 if you want warnings about potential problems. bigger values = more debugging output, obviously. defaults to 1.
  • kern.cam.ctl.iscsi.maxtags — how many outstanding commands you advertise to each iSCSI initiator. heads up though: the current implementation is not very accurate, so do not set this below 2. defaults to 256.
  • kern.cam.ctl.iscsi.ping_timeout — the number of seconds to wait for the iSCSI initiator to respond to a NOP-In PDU. and if there's no response within that time? the session gets forcibly terminated. set it to 0 to disable sending NOP-In PDUs entirely. defaults to 5.
no cap, that timeout one is serious — silence is not golden here, silence gets your session yeeted. 💀

🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

🧚 HISTORY 🧚

the cfiscsi subsystem first appeared in FreeBSD 10.0 as part of the ctl(4) driver. then it got split off of ctl(4) in FreeBSD 12.0. glow-up era. ✨

👑 AUTHORS 👑

the cfiscsi subsystem was developed by Edward Tomasz Napierala <trasz@FreeBSD.org> under sponsorship from the FreeBSD Foundation.

this manual page was written by Enji Cooper <ngie@FreeBSD.org>.

and that's the whole page bestie, you ate it, periodt 💅

Debian — May 28, 2017 — CFISCSI(4) 🦋💖

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