Internet Scsi (Iscsi) - Intel S7000FC4UR Technical Product Specification

Intel® Server System S7000FC4UR TPS New Technologies

20.3 Internet SCSI (iSCSI)

Internet SCSI (iSCSI) is an industry standard where a host platform sends SCSI commands
over the internet to the remote target SCSI device. This feature can be supported in two ways:
hardware-based iSCSI and software-based iSCSI.
The server system only supports the hardware-based iSCSI solution. In the hardware-based
iSCSI solution, the entire iSCSI command engine is within the NIC adapter. The management of
data over the internet via the TCP/IP protocol is done by the iSCSI initiator (in pre-boot space
part of Option ROM) and operating system driver in operating system space.
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The onboard NIC (Intel 82563EB) acts as an iSCSI initiator. The storage sub-system attached
through the Ethernet connection is referred to as the iSCSI Target.
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The iSCSI solution uses the Intel 82563EB network interface device behind the ESB2 South
Bridge as an initiator by executing an Option ROM embedded into the system BIOS. This
Option ROM contains 16-bit legacy code and is discovered during the PCI enumeration
process.
BIOS Setup provides a menu item to enable or disable iSCSI support. By default, iSCSI is
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disabled. PXE and iSCSI functionality is mutually exclusive on the Intel 82563EB Ethernet
device because iSCSI or PXE configures access to all the available ports of the same network.
The user must therefore ensure the Intel 82563EB PXE Option ROM is disabled prior to
enabling the Intel 82563EB iSCSI Option ROM.
The BIOS needs to provide boot parameters to the iSCSI target device used by the host system
to boot from. Occasionally, these targets may have DHCP capability and their iSCSI OPROM
image can acquire the IP for the initiator (itself) and setup its communication. Once the Option
ROM is executed, the iSCSI device hooks up its drive information into the BBS table and the
device appears in the BIOS Boot Manager menu during POST.
The Interrupt 13h interface is used to read the Master Boot Record and load the operating
system when a boot attempt is made from the device attached to iSCSI.
The BIOS does not report any specific issues with iSCSI Option ROM initialization. This should
be handled by the iSCSI Option ROM itself similar to other Legacy OPROM images.
In case the BIOS runs out of available memory in the Option ROM shadow region while
dispatching Option ROM, the issue is reported in the POST Error Manager.
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