This software is an AoE (ATA over Ethernet) storage initiator for Linux kernels 2.6.18 and up.
The version number of this driver is unrelated to the version numbers of Linux kernels. Just use the latest aoe driver with your 2.6 or 3.x Linux kernel.
This driver is available on github.
Please see linux/Documentation/aoe.txt for basic information and EtherDrive-2.6-HOWTO.sgml for more.
The aoetools (available separately at sourceforge.net) are required for this aoe driver. A compatible version is currently bundled with this driver, but if you update the version that appears as "TOOLS_D" in the Makefile, you can generally use something newer.
After extracting aoetools, to build the ATA over Ethernet driver, just
type make.
Then, as root, do make install to make the driver available to your
system. You may have to install the kernel sources provided by your
Linux distribution if you don't have them already.
The Makefile builds an aoe module for the currently-running kernel by
default. The kernel sources in /lib/modules/uname -r/build are
used. These sources should already be configured (e.g., with make menuconfig or make oldconfig) and ready to be used for building.
The easiest way to make it ready for building is to do a make in
that directory.
If you need to build a module for a different kernel, make sure those kernel sources are properly configured and ready for building. Then tell make where to find the kernel sources and where to install the aoe module.
Here's an example where I'm running 2.6.16.62, and building an aoe module for a different kernel, 2.6.32.60. The make commands are each typed as one long line, without a backslash.
$ cd /tmp/aoe6-50
$ uname -r
2.6.16.62
$ make KDIR=~/kernel/linux-2.6.32.60 \
INSTDIR=/lib/modules/2.6.32.60/kernel/drivers/block/aoe
$ su -
# cd /tmp/aoe6-50
# make install KDIR=~ecashin/kernel/linux-2.6.32.60 \
INSTDIR=/lib/modules/2.6.32.60/kernel/drivers/block/aoe
If you have installed a previous version of the aoe driver, it is best to get rid of any old files that might get in the way. These two commands remove old device files and any aoe modules for the running kernel.
rm -rf /dev/etherd
find /lib/modules/`uname -r` -name aoe.ko -print0 | xargs -0 rm
If udev is detected, an aoe driver is built that uses dynamic minor device numbers in order to support the maximum number of possible AoE target addresses. What that means to you is that if you plan to use udev, it should be running when you build the aoe driver.
If udev is not detected, the makefile builds an old-fashioned aoe driver (that uses predictable minor numbers for a smaller number of AoE devices) and creates enough device files for ten EtherDrive shelves. If you want more device files, specify it on the make command line. For example, to create device files for fifteen shelves, use the following command.
make install N_DEV_SHELVES=15
If you are not running udev and you don't want the makefile to create
device nodes, you can do a make install_nodev instead of a make install.
There is optional support for having only one partition per aoe device. This feature may be useful on systems that do not support large minor device numbers well, e.g., debian sarge.
Some versions of mdadm do not handle large minor device numbers well. To use this compatibility feature set the AOE_PARTITIONS variable in the Makefile to 1.
Maintainer:
Ed L. Cashin
ecashin@acm.org
Original Author:
Sam Hopkins
There is an aoetools-discuss mailing list at aoetools.sourceforge.net.
Please see the linux/Documentation/aoe/aoe.txt and the other files in that directory.