v0.0.20 / release-v2020.09.04

Release Notes: v0.0.20 / release-v2020.09.04

In the release assets you will find:

• xnvme-v0.0.20.src.tar.gz - Full source archive, no third-party dependencies or submodules!
• xnvme-v0.0.20.bin.tar.gz - Binary archive for Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18
• xnvme-v0.0.20*.deb - Binary Debian packages for installation on Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18
• test-results.zip - CIJOE test-results, logs, and reports

Known Issues

• Fabrics

  • Errors are observed when constructing payloads with an mdts exceeding
    16 * 1024 bytes. Thus a work-around is applied bounding the derived
    mdts_nbytes associated with the device geometry.

• Binaries

  • xNVMe does not build with -march=native, however, SPDK/DPDK does. Thus,
    when the xNVMe library "bundles" SPDK/DPDK and the binaries are linked,
    then they can contain ISA-specific instructions.
    If you invoke e.g. xnvme enum and see the message Illegal Instruction, then this is why.

• be::spdk

  • Does not build on Alpine Linux
  • Re-initialization fails, e.g. repeatedly calling xnvme_enumerate()

• be::lioc

  • Does not support command-option XNVME_CMD_ASYNC

• be::liou and be::laio

  • Simple-Copy-Command via the Kernel path is not available as support has not
    been merged with upstream
  • Append via the Kernel path is not available as support has not been merged
    with upstream

v0.0.20

• Third-party libraries

  • Updated to fio/v3.22
  • Made fio available to the third-party SPDK build
  • Added build of SPDK fio io-engine
  • Fixed missing update of third-party version-strings

• The xNVMe fio io-engine

  • Several fixes to locking/serialization and error-handling
  • Adjusted to changes in upstream ZBD support
  • Changed the zoned fio-example to not be timebased, since it could lead to
    the verify-job never getting to the verify-part when running on emulated
    devices
  • Increased ramp_time in comparison-script
  • Fixed memory issue due to missing get_file_size

• Backends

  • Added a backend nwrp the NULL-Async-IO backend, purpose of which is to
    troubleshoot and benchmark the async-io path

• General

  • A bunch of fixes including bad format-strings, out-of-bound / array
    overflows, non-atomic locks, improper error-path handling

• CI

  • Added workflow generating docker-image with latest source, providing
    everything needed to build xNVMe and latest qemu to deploy and experiment
    with xNVMe on emulated NVMe devices
  • Added workflow doing Coverity scan and uploading results for analysis
  • Added fio binary and SPDK fio io-engines as artifacts. During testing,
    fio is needed, however, the test-environment might not have the same
    version available as the io-engines are built against, usually xNVMe is
    built against the latest release which might not have made it into the
    package repos.

v0.0.19 / release-v2020.08.21

Release Notes: v0.0.19 / release-v2020.08.21

In the release assets you will find:

• xnvme-v0.0.19.src.tar.gz - Full source archive, no third-party dependencies or submodules!
• xnvme-v0.0.19.bin.tar.gz - Binary archive for Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18
• xnvme-v0.0.19*.deb - Binary Debian packages for installation on Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18
• test-results.zip - CIJOE test-results, logs, and reports

Known Issues

• Fabrics

  • Errors are observed when constructing payloads with an mdts exceeding
    16 * 1024 bytes. Thus a work-around is applied bounding the derived
    mdts_nbytes associated with the device geometry.

• Binaries

  • xNVMe does not build with -march=native, however, SPDK/DPDK does. Thus,
    when the xNVMe library "bundles" SPDK/DPDK and the binaries are linked,
    then they can contain ISA-specific instructions.
    If you invoke e.g. xnvme enum and see the message Illegal Instruction, then this is why.

• be::spdk

  • Does not build on Alpine Linux
  • Re-initialization fails, e.g. repeatedly calling xnvme_enumerate()

• be::lioc

  • Does not support command-option XNVME_CMD_ASYNC

• be::liou and be::laio

  • Simple-Copy-Command via the Kernel path is not available as support has not
    been merged with upstream
  • Append via the Kernel path is not available as support has not been merged
    with upstream

v0.0.19

• Third-party libraries

  • Updated to liburing/v0.7, SPDK/v20.07, fio/v3.21
  • Updated docs describing new third-party requirements for building
  • Adjusted patches and build-system to changes

• Fabrics: SPDK-patches enabling zone-changes over Fabrics

• Added public-domain CI

  • Primarily using GitHUB Actions / Workflows
  • Aux. analysis via lgtm.com
  • Updated docs and scripts for CI via GitHUB Actions

• Updated support for the NVMe Simple-Copy-Command (SCC)

  • Targeting TP 2020.05.04 (Ratified)
  • Added tests/scc.c testing for SCC-support, print identify fields, and
    exercises the command itself

v0.0.18 / release-v2020.07.24

Release Notes: v0.0.18 / release-v2020.07.24

In the release assets you will find:

• xnvme-v0.0.18.src.tar.gz - Full source archive, no third-party dependencies or submodules!
• xnvme-v0.0.18.bin.tar.gz - Binary archive for Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18
• xnvme-v0.0.18*.deb - Binary Debian packages for installation on Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18

Known Issues

• Fabrics

  • Errors are observed when constructing payloads with an mdts exceeding
    16 * 1024 bytes. Thus a work-around is applied bounding the derived
    mdts_nbytes associated with the device geometry.

• be::spdk

  • Does not build on Alpine Linux

• be::lioc

  • Does not support command-option XNVME_CMD_ASYNC

v0.0.18

• Third-party libraries: SPDK

  • Updated tracking of SPDK to current master(7dbaf54bf) and adjusted linkage
  • Removed patches that are now upstream
  • Updated nvmf/IOCS support

• Fixed non-IOCS device identification

• Improved async. interface tests

v0.0.17

Release Notes: v0.0.17 / release-v2020.06.26

In the release assets you will find:

• xnvme-v0.0.17.src.tar.gz - Full source archive, no third-party dependencies or submodules!
• xnvme-v0.0.17.bin.tar.gz - Binary archive for Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18
• xnvme-v0.0.17*.deb - Binary Debian packages for installation on Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18

v0.0.17

• The xNVMe fio IO engine

  • It now supports Zoned Devices!
    It does so by mapping the Zoned Command Set to the ZBD Kernel abstraction
    See: https://xnvme.io/docs/latest/tools/fio/index.html#fio-xnvme-io-engine-on-nvme-device-with-zoned-command-set
  • It now supports multiple devices!
    Minor caveat; when using multiple-devices then one cannot mix backends
  • The engine was developed against fio-3.20, other versions might pose issues
    with the IO-engine interface leading to segfaults when running or just
    exiting. It should now produce a meaningful error-message when this
    happens.

• Added support for I/O Command Set aka Namespace Types

  • Convenience functions to retrieve command-set specific identity
  • Misc. definitions in the libxnvme_spec.h headers
  • Utilization of these via the CLI tools xnvme and lblk
  • Patched SPDK to allow Command Set Selection
  • Added identifier option "?css=0xHEX" for Controller Configuration

• Added support for the Zoned Command Set aka Zoned Namespaces

  • Support is encapsulated in the library header 'libznd.h'
  • Convenience functions for Zoned Commands
    For example: znd_cmd_mgmt_send(), znd_cmd_mgmt_send(), znd_cmd_append()
    Helpers for retrieving zone-reports with and with descriptor extensions
    See: https://xnvme.io/docs/latest/capis/znd_headers.html#
  • Support in fio via the xNVMe fio I/O Engine
    See: https://xnvme.io/docs/latest/tools/fio/index.html#fio-xnvme-io-engine-on-nvme-device-with-zoned-command-set
  • CLI tool 'zoned' for convenient command-line management/inspection of zoned
    devices
    See: https://xnvme.io/docs/latest/tools/zoned/index.html

• be:liou, the io_uring backend

  • Added opcode-checking via the "new" probing feature
  • Replaced READV/WRITEV with READ/WRITE
  • Build of be::liou on Alpine Linux

• Added be::laio the Linux/libaio backend

  • A great supplement to the IOCTL, io_uring, and SPDK backends

• Added initial support for NVMe-oF / Fabrics

  • xnvme_dev_open(): 'uri' argument on the form: "fab::?nsid=xyz"
  • xnvme_enumerate(): 'sys_uri' argument on the form "fab::"
  • Command-line utility: 'xnvme enum' takes '--uri "fab::"'
  • See: https://xnvme.io/docs/latest/tutorial/fabrics.html

• Added handling of extended-LBA

  • Expanded geometry with lba_extended informing whether
    extended-LBAs are in effect. That is, when flbas.bit4 is set AND the
    current lbaf.ms is not zero.
  • Expanded geometry with lba_nbytes, which will always contain the
    size of an LBA in bytes. When lba_extended is cleared to zero, then
    lba_nbytes is lbaf.ds, in bytes, when lba_extended is set to 1,
    then lba_nbytes is lbaf.ds + lbaf.ms.
  • When lba_extended is cleared to 0 then the API I/O helpers expect to be
    passed dbuf, and mbuf. When lba_extended is set to 1, then the
    API I/O helpers expect dbuf to contain data and meta-data, and expect
    mbuf to be NULL.

• Third Party libraries

  • The organization of these has changed such that tracking them and applying
    patches is easier
  • The versions / git-revision info from bundled libraries bundled can now be
    queried via the api calls 'xnvme_3p_ver_*()'
  • The CLI tool 'xnvme' produces these upon request via 'xnvme library-info'
  • Most of the third-party libraries have been updated to, at the time of
    writing, latest versions

• And a bunch of fixes

  • xnvmec: fixed errno assignment and decode
  • be: added comment on failed attempt at _blockdevice_geometry()
  • Fixed a build-issue on ARM
  • Updated backend documentation and added link to online docs in README
  • ...

Known Issues

• Fabrics

  • Errors are observed when constructing payloads with an mdts exceeding
    16 * 1024 bytes. Thus a work-around is applied bounding the derived
    mdts_nbytes associated with the device geometry.

• be::spdk

  • Does not build on Alpine Linux

• be::lioc

  • Does not support command-option XNVME_CMD_ASYNC

Release Notes: v0.0.16

Find online documentation at https://xnvme.io/docs/

In the GitHUB release assets you will find:

• xnvme-v0.0.16.src.tar.gz - Full source archive, no third-party dependencies or submodules.
• xnvme-v0.0.16.bin.tar.gz - Binary archive for Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18
• xnvme-v0.0.16*.deb - Binary Debian packages for installation on Debian 10 / Ubuntu 18

Caveats / Known Issues

• be::liou does not build on Alpine Linux

• be::spdk does not build on Alpine Linux

• be::lioc does not support XNVME_CMD_ASYNC

v0.0.16

• Initial public release of xNVMe