Re: [Ips] no DHCP-assigned InitiatorName

Michael,

I think that some of the OSs have the initiator name wired into the image 
and boot providers will have to set this name.
I am not sure how what exactly is required for each version.
The boot RFC defines where the image comes from but very little else.

Sivan may give you a pointer to CbCS.

Regards,
Julo

From:
Michael Howard <michael.howard@scalent.com>
To:
Julian Satran/Haifa/IBM@IBMIL
Cc:
ips@ietf.org
Date:
09/22/2008 09:19
Subject:
Re: [Ips] no DHCP-assigned InitiatorName

Julian Satran wrote:
> Michael - I am not sure what you are looking for? A standard parameter 
> as those described by the iBOOT RFC?

Yes, I am looking for a specific DHCP parameter that defines what 
InitiatorName is to be used by the iSCSI boot client.

It seems to me that the purpose of RFC4173 was/is to allow stateless 
clients to boot. The target parameters that are specified in RFC4173 are 
necessary, but not sufficient. On many commercial iSCSI target servers 
you must have the InitiatorName in order to be able to log in to the 
target. This is the case for NetApp and SANRAD, and I strongly for many 
others.

> In any case the initiator name is not the only way to control what a 
> server will access.
> 
> CbCS (stands for Credential Based Command Security) available for any 
> SCSI device at the SCSI layer (see the T10 site) is probably 
> safer/better and does not depend on things that can be so easy faked by 
> an initiator as the initiator name and may be easier to deploy.

This is not something that I am familiar with ...

*** 10 minutes later ***

I could find no reference to CbCS or Command Based Command Security at 
the NetApp support site now.netapp.com

A quick search at www.t10.org didn't turn anything up either ... I'll 
keep looking.

There may (and should) be other/better security mechanisms working their 
way through the standardization and implementation processes.

As a practical measure, I believe that a DHCP-supplied InitiatorName is 
needed because InitiatorName is required by many commercial iSCSI target 
servers.

Michael