Re: ataNG

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

:David Rhodus is considering an all DragonFly iSCSI setup, using ATA raid
:controllers for the backend storage. To front a storage device with an
:iSCSI target requires a clean interface to it from the CAM layer. At least
:at first glance I need ataNG to do that for regular ATA devices. To date
:I've only worked with SCSI devices.
:
:I'm wondering if there is any opposition to possibly pulling ataNG in at
:some point in the near future.
:
:					-Kip

    I am not opposed to it, *BUT* I have one requirement... that it be
    brought in under a new device name and that we keep the existing ata
    driver.

    The reason is that while ATAng has new features, especially SATA support,
    that our older driver does not, it also has a lot of problems (that have
    been brought up on the freebsd-current lists), and it is also still
    under some pretty serious development in -current and breakages are
    likely to continue in the forseeable future.

    So if you want to bring ATAng in give it a new name and a new major
    device number.  We can add support for the device number in the boot
    code so machines can boot into the new driver, and perhaps differentiate
    the PCI ID's it recognizes to allow both drivers to be resident at
    once (or, alternatively, only allow one or the other driver to be 
    linked into the kernel).

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>