iscsi-initiator - Man Page

The iscsi-initiator utility can be used to access an iSCSI target, such as iscsi-target(8), to access block storage which has been exported. Information pertaining to the target is displayed underneath the mount point, along with the device corresponding to the storage which the target exports.

The various arguments are as follows:

-4

Use an IPv4 connection to the target.

-6

Use an IPv6 connection to the target.

-a authentication-type

Use the specified authentication type when communicating with the target. The possible values are chap, kerberos, srp or none. The default value is none.

-b

Show the storage as a block device.

-c

Show the storage as a character device.

-d digest-type

Use the specified digest type when communicating with the target. The possible values are header, data, both, all or none. The default value is none.

-D

List the LUNs on the specified target and exit (i.e. do discovery only)

-f

Show the storage as a regular file.

-h hostname

Connect to the iSCSI target running on the host specified as the argument.

-p port-number

Connect to the iSCSI target running on the port specified as the argument. The default value is 3260.

-t target

Connect to the number of the iSCSI target running as the argument.

-u username

Use the specified user's credentials when logging in to the iSCSI target. There is no default.

-V

Print out the version number and then exit.

-v

Be verbose in operation.

The refuse(3) library is used to provide the file system features.

The mandatory parameter is the local mount point.

This iSCSI initiator presents a view of the targets underneath the mount point. Firstly, it creates a directory tree with the hostname of the target, and, in that directory, a virtual directory is created for each target name exported by the iSCSI target program. Within that virtual target directory, symbolic links exist for the hostname (for convenience), a textual representation of the IP address, the iSCSI target product name, the iSCSI target IQN, the iSCSI target vendor and version number. One other directory entry is presented in the virtual target directory, relating to the storage presented by the iSCSI target. This can be in the form of a regular file, which is also the default, a block device or a character device.

Please note that the iscsi-initiator utility needs the “puffs” kernel module loaded via modload(8) to operate.

# ./iscsi-initiator -u agc -h iscsi-target0.alistaircrooks.co.uk /mnt
# ls -al /mnt/target0
total 576
drwxr-xr-x  2 agc  agc        512 May 11 22:24 .
drwxr-xr-x  2 agc  agc        512 May 11 22:24 ..
lrw-r--r--  1 agc  agc         39 May 11 22:24 hostname -> iscsi-target0.alistaircrooks.co.uk
lrw-r--r--  1 agc  agc         14 May 11 22:24 ip -> 172.16.135.130
lrw-r--r--  1 agc  agc         16 May 11 22:24 product -> NetBSD iSCSI
-rw-r--r--  1 agc  agc  104857600 May 11 22:24 storage
lrw-r--r--  1 agc  agc         43 May 11 22:24 targetname -> iqn.1994-04.org.netbsd.iscsi-target:target0
lrw-r--r--  1 agc  agc          8 May 11 22:24 vendor -> NetBSD
lrw-r--r--  1 agc  agc          4 May 11 22:24 version -> 0
#

puffs(3), refuse(3), iscsi-target(8)

The iscsi-initiator utility first appeared in NetBSD 6.0.

The iscsi-initiator utility was written by Alistair Crooks ⟨agc@NetBSD.org⟩.

iscsi-initiator currently only supports a CHAP challenge length of 16 octets. Other initiators support up to 1024 and thus it is expected that most targets will also support such lengths. This means that CHAP compatibility with other targets apart from iscsi-target(8) is likely to be poor. To workaround this, please use authentication type none by not specifying a username with the -u option.