An assessment of CiviCRM for non-profits

Introduction

Lately, we have been evaluating open source CRM softwares that are available in the market. Remarkably speaking, the CRM software market seems to really on the move with SugarCRM and CiviCRM being some of the most popular and widely used open source softwares.

Our Requirements in a nutshell

We are a small non profit service organization and have the need of maintaining contacts ( volunteers, donors, media contacts, partner organizations, NGOs etc), accounting/donor/fund raising information and potentially a document knowledge base and project management/event planning functionality. In addition, we needed mass personalized mailing functionality as well and an ability to define internal hierarchy or relationship between volunteers or organizations.

Till now, we were maintaining all our information in Yahoo! groups Files section or not even that in some cases. Contacts were kept in different forms, most of the times misplaced and rarely followed up on properly. Out of sight is out of mind and thats what happened.

CiviCRM

Well, I was looking at online articles and blogs about similar non-profit organizations who may implemented open source CRM softwares, and that's when I came to know about Civicrm. I spent about a day installing it on Drupal 5.x (civicrm 2.0 does not work with Drupal 6.x yet) and exploring it.

The scope of this article is limited to CiviCRM and observations around it. But as all things, there is good news and there is bad news. Let me start with the good news.

Good features:

1) The GUI is quite simple and intuitive for administrators. Most of the features and projected functionality can be figured out easily.

2) Contact management and defining different kinds of relationships is simple. You can define relationships between individuals, groups and organizations, which is quite extensible. For a contact, you can define associated grants, notes, meetings, groups, memberships, relationships, mails etc, kind of like a central view.

3) Contribute and Grants module are good for Integration with online payment system like Googlc checking or Paypal and for tracking and pre-scheduling donations

4) CiviMail can do personalized mailings. Attachments dont seem to be possible (at least I could not see it work). Messages can be tracked etc, but the reporting interface does not compare with SugarCRM (more evolved). For actually triggering the mail delivery a cron job has to be run and for bounce processing, some extra unix utilies (e.g. AMaViS,postfix) have to be configured

5) Customization to current forms or tables is easy. When we upgrade to a newer version of CiviCRM, the Custom Data Fields and Custom Data Groups will be maintained. Specialized customizations using the PHP programming language will need to be re-created when you upgrade, however.

6) The data model is simpler and easy to understand. The entity relationship diagram is available at
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/CiviCRM+ERD+2.0

7) It has a planner features too -- activities, meetings etc (types can be defined).

8) Good user integration/sync with Drupal and Joomla

9) Although there is no menu link for CiviReports, the reports are available through http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/CiviReport. There are a lot of sql queries also that are available online on wiki.civicrm.org

Some other features -- but not essential for us:

1) CiviEvent is useful for putting signup pages for events. I thought it was kind of interesting though. Its good for promoting events and signing up people into your contact database.

2) CiviMember module can be used for tracking memberships to the organization (e.g. lifemember, goldmember etc). We did not need this functionality as we do not charge anything for membership, but it could be used at some point of time.

3) Can Configure Google or Yahoo Maps to work with CiviCRM. This is actually kind of cool. I always wanted to implement something like for our website wherein a project's location in the world could be shown through yahoo or google map.

4) The CitizenSpeak module allows the creation of email petition campaign nodes. Users enter the email recipients and the a message to create a campaign. When someone visits the node, they see a form that displays a preview of the message and allows them to enter their contact information and a personal statement. When they submit the form, the target of the campaign is notified. The version currently in CVS is built against Drupal 4.6. (http://drupal.org/project/citizenspeak)

Features lacking:

1) project Management -- This feature is present in sugarcrm Community Edition and we though we could use it for managing events (their tasks) and sharing event templates between chapters

2) Document management -- This feature would have been done to implement a knowledge base system for our volunteers and organization in general.

3) Can't create a new module through GUI, but APIs are published.

4) Leads and Opportunity Management are not present and not differentiated

Some Interesting Facts:

Amnesty International uses CiviCRM to collect website registration data and process online donations

Overall thoughts

I felt that the civicrm product is in initial stages and will see a lot of change or value addition in the near future. There are a lot of things coming and they will come slowly. From the http://civicrm.org/architecture, I could see that there was already talk of more performance or caching features in 2.1 version.

All in all, It still has some ways to go before it can catch up with sugarCRM. But then, civicrm is focused exclusively on non-profit organizations and is designed for them. It will have its own growth path: one that would may be less spectacular than sugarcrm for a little while, but it sure packs a lot of potential in it.

Sharing windows folders on unix hosts using samba filesystem (smbfs) using virtualbox

The need for windows sharing..

A few days ago, I wanted to do a Oracle 12i installation on a x86 linux distribution using virtualbox. The media was available on an external hard disk, but I thought that instead of copying the 30+ G of media on unix virtual machine, why not just make it shared between the windows host OS and unix guest OS.

The quest for sharing..

And so began my quest for sharing files between windows and virtualbox unix OS (SuSE linux). I discovered that for sharing folders using virtualbox, the guest OS additions have to be installed.

I have seen that upgrading the kernel breaks the guest OS additions at times. After upgrading the guest OS from SuSE linux 9 to SuSE linux 9.3, the guest additions stopped working. The same problem also exists with vmware tools.

So first, I created a shared folder in the virtual machine's definition:

Click here for a bigger view



After starting the Guest OS (Ubuntu),

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# mkdir /mnt/winshare

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# mount -t vboxsf public /mnt/winshare

Mind you, the filesystem type is NOT vboxfs, it is vboxsf (s and f are interchanged). If you do not take note of this, you might end up wasting your time for nothing.

Now, we can check that the shared folder did indeed mount:

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# mount | grep vbox
public on /mnt/winshare type vboxsf (rw)

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# ls /mnt/winshare
CyberLink  desktop.ini  Downloads  Music     Recorded TV         Videos
Desktop    Documents    Favorites  Pictures  StarzEntertainment  Vongo

Let it be mentioned here that the vboxadd and vboxvfs (note that it has vfs after vbox) modules needed to be loaded for this to work:

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# lsmod | grep vb
vboxvfs                 42432  1
vboxadd                 24872  9 vboxvfs

The Caveat..

But, as every cloud has a silver lining, there was a caveat here for my problem.

The above case was just a demonstration of how the shared folder could have worked fine. I actually then went on to mount some linux media for Oracle Applications 12i for x86 intel platform. After the directory mounted all right, I had a really hard time adding the execute permissions to the rapidwiz files. Even after doing persistent # chmod -R +x commands, the shell scripts under the media were not showing the "x" execute flag.

This was very frustrating. It was probably just another virtualbox bug.

So, then I started looking around for more options. I had heard that many people had used samba with success and hence I started scouring the internet (Google Zindabaad! - Long live, Google!). Came across a link that explained how to do it in a succinct manner.

The good thing about sharing files from windows to unix using samba file system (smbfs) was that was that I did not need to run samba on unix at all.

Doing it using samba filesystem..

So here are some quick and easy steps for sharing a windows share using smbfs:

First things first. You need to create a network share for the folder that you want to share. In my case, I wanted to share an external hard disk that had the media for Oracle Applications 12i. So, I did a network share of windows folder (e.g. \\GAURAV-PC\media)

On the guest OS (Ubuntu), did the following:

# mkdir -p /mnt/media

# smbmount //GAURAV-PC/media /mnt/media -o username=gaurav,password=welcome

Please note that // (forward slashes) worked for me. Some guides on the internet say that you need to use \\ (back slashes)

Note here that GAURAV-PC hostname was defined in the local hosts file to a resolvable IP address in the LAN. The Ubuntu Virtual machine was connected to the windows Host through a host only networking type interface, that allowed the host and guest OS to talk to each other.

# more /etc/hosts
GAURAV-PC 192.168.0.2

Please note here that a ping to GAURAV-PC HAS TO work when you give the smbmount command. I wasted many hours trying to run strace on this command, just because it was hanging. The issue was that due to some strange happenstance, the ping to GAURAV-PC (windows host) was hanging.

The workaround was to ping the Ubuntu virtual machine (say 192.168.0.7) first from the host OS (windows), after which the ping to GAURAV-PC 192.168.0.2 started working from Ubuntu Guest OS. Strange, strange, I agree, but I am just a guy looking for solutions! I have seen this behaviour in Windows Vista home premium edition - host OS.

Make sure the smbfs module is loaded in the guest OS. If not, then load it using # modprobe smbfs:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# lsmod | grep smbfs
smbfs                  66296  0

Note that the Samba server does not need to run:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# ps -ef | grep smb
root      6116  5616  0 00:00:00 grep smb

This was my samba configuration file:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# more /usr/share/samba/smb.conf
[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
security = share
usershare path =  /var/lib/samba/usershare
usershare max shares = 100
usershare allow guests = yes
usershare owner only = yes
wins support = no
netbios name = GAURAV-PC

I am not exactly sure if setting the netbios name parameter was a major factor in making it work or not, but I guess it certainly did not hurt.

Now when I run mount command, the windows network share was showing up there just fine:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.24-16-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/gverma/.gvfs type  fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=gverma)
//GAURAV-PC/media on /mnt/media type cifs (rw,mand)

Thankfully, I was able to make the unix shell scripts executable after doing this and launch the rapid wizard for 12i installation. That's all I wanted.

Conclusion

Well, so there you have it. If you are using windows host OS and you upgraded your guest OS kernel, the guest additions may not work due to compilation errors. In such a case, you are better off using the samba file system as its much easier to deal with and not too much of a pain to setup.

A poor man's guide for creating iscsi targets without using external USB hard disks

A special need..

Those of you who have a need for exposing iscsi targets to other machines for discovery, but who do not want to invest in an external USB hard disk OR who do not want to have a USB external hard disk connected to a desktop 24x7, there is a better way of creating and exposing iscsi target logical volumes.

This method does not need installing openfiler either as noted in my earlier article Combining Openfiler and Virtualbox (Ubuntu guest OS on windows host).

A simple solution..

The method is simple: create logical volumes based on SCSI devices on a Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 installation using virtualbox.

The advantage of using Ubuntu is that it creates the hard disk devices as scsi devices (with the naming convention /dev/sd*, instead of /dev/hd*). I have seen that in other unix OS like SuSE linux, the local disks are listed as /dev/hd* (IDE). Ubuntu seems to have better disk drivers.

If you use Hardy Heron 8.04 Ubuntu, it is *really* easy to get iscsitarget package working. If you try to make the iscsi-target package work with Gutsy Gibbon 7.x release of Ubuntu, there is a very good chance that you will run into lot of compilation issues. I went down this path myself and later realized that a lot of bugs existed for Gutsy Gibbon release. (e.g. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/gutsy/+source/iscsitarget/+bug/160104, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=692651) and eventually found https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/iscsitarget/+bug/145539 which said that the module was fixed in Hardy Heron 8.04.

So instead of breaking my head over making iscsi-target package work in Gutsy Gibbon 2.6.22, I decided to give Hardy Heron 8.04 (still beta) a try.

Thankfully, with a little effort, I was able to make it work. In this article, I present a simplistic scenario in which we create three logical volumes that can be easily discovered by another virtualbox iscsi initiator machine(s) using open-iscsi package. This is the beauty of the entire approach.

Here is a block diagram of the end configuration:

Click here for a bigger view

Iscsi support in Hardy Heron 8.04 Ubuntu..

The first thing to understand is that as per the published features of Hardy Heron 8.04 Ubuntu at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyHeron/Beta#head-da07b62e1e43afd0bef06ab8b60d2502c734a0f9, the iscsi support is enabled out of the box if we add iscsi=true in the boot options during the installation.

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While installing Hardy 8.04 OS using virtualbox or any other virtualization software being used, remember to add iscsi=true in the boot options (after pressing F6)

Click here for a bigger view

Configuring iscsi targets..

I would like to give credit to a really awesome link I found through google: http://www.linuxconfig.org/Linux_lvm_-_Logical_Volume_Manager, which I rate as a one of the best article s for doing this!

Some other relevant links are:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpLVM-WithoutACleanInstall
http://t3flyers.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/logical-volume-manager-on-ubuntu-feisty-704/
http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_lvm

After Ubuntu installation, the output of uname -a looks like this:

HARDY# uname -a
Linux gverma-laptop 2.6.24-16-generic #1 SMP Thu Apr 10 13:23:42 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

And the output of fdisk -l looks like this:

HARDY# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 16.5 GB, 16592666624 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2017 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0004ccc2
Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        1927    15478596   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            1928        2017      722925    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            1928        2017      722893+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

At this point, I added two more hard disks to the virtualbox virtual machine. Virtualbox 1.5.6 allows upto three hard disk devices to be attached to a machine.

Click here for a bigger view



After booting up HARDY again, /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc were also visible in the output of fdisk -l. Using fdisk, I created a single partition in both devices that spanned the entire device, resulting in /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdc1:

HARDY# fdisk -l

...
Disk /dev/sdb: 21.4 GB, 21474836480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2610 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd310045f

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1        2610    20964793+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 21.4 GB, 21474836480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2610 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x93d4c692

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1               1        2610    20964793+  83  Linux

Also make sure that you configure host only networking so that other virtual machines (scsi initiators) are able to ssh/telnet into HARDY. Please look at article to understand how host only networking can be setup: Virtualbox Case Study: Making host only networking work between two Ubuntu Guest OS (virtual machine) on Windows Vista host

Getting the right packages installed..

Now, we need to create the target physical volume, virtual group, and logical volume, in that order. These logical volumes will serve as SCSI targets that can be discovered by other iscsi initiator machines or virtual machines as per your configuration.

Make sure you reload the package definitions from the configured repositories (get the latest packages that are published from the ubuntu repositories). You can do this from the Synaptic Package Manager:

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Now, you should install the lvm2 package in Synaptic Package Manager:

Click here for a bigger view

Create the physical volumes:

HARDY# lvm

lvm> pvcreate /dev/sdb1
Physical volume "/dev/sdb1" successfully created
lvm> pvcreate /dev/sdc1
Physical volume "/dev/sdc1" successfully created
lvm> pvdisplay
--- NEW Physical volume ---
PV Name               /dev/sdb1
VG Name
PV Size               19.99 GB
Allocatable           NO
PE Size (KByte)       0
Total PE              0
Free PE               0
Allocated PE          0
PV UUID               OHKhOq-AMG7-XtYz-7CrP-q2VH-2b53-tW0yMO

--- NEW Physical volume ---
PV Name               /dev/sdc1
VG Name
PV Size               19.99 GB
Allocatable           NO
PE Size (KByte)       0
Total PE              0
Free PE               0
Allocated PE          0
PV UUID               M9qXXB-GVxC-FZjI-9Zb7-IhcH-rbhb-vQ3aek

Create the virtual group:

lvm> vgcreate vg /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1
Volume group "vg" successfully created
lvm> vgdisplay
--- Volume group ---
VG Name               vg
System ID
Format                lvm2
Metadata Areas        2
Metadata Sequence No  1
VG Access             read/write
VG Status             resizable
MAX LV                0
Cur LV                0
Open LV               0
Max PV                0
Cur PV                2
Act PV                2
VG Size               39.98 GB
PE Size               4.00 MB
Total PE              10236
Alloc PE / Size       0 / 0
Free  PE / Size       10236 / 39.98 GB
VG UUID               GkUMNq-3atR-qKTK-lG0b-gM0n-budV-Uc4lH8

lvm>

Create logial volumes:

lvm> lvcreate -L 1G -n ocr vg
Logical volume "ocr" created
lvm> lvcreate -L 1G -n vote vg
Logical volume "vote" created
lvm> lvcreate -L 35G -n asm vg
Logical volume "asm" created

If you get an error message saying:
/proc/misc: No entry for device-mapper
you can get around it by issuing sudo modprobe dm-mod

lvm> lvdisplay
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/vg/ocr
VG Name                vg
LV UUID                a2ARIQ-11dn-kdoB-cHCd-gtoR-aokO-HGqoo4
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
# open                 0
LV Size                1.00 GB
Current LE             256
Segments               1
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     0
Block device           254:0

--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/vg/vote
VG Name                vg
LV UUID                1DqYL0-Ptsx-9kmE-UHmn-PmE9-ebVm-bfr0r0
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
# open                 0
LV Size                1.00 GB
Current LE             256
Segments               1
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     0
Block device           254:1

--- Logical volume ---
LV Name                /dev/vg/asm
VG Name                vg
LV UUID                UKWcPz-aNGl-VdPm-51wa-Ewvm-ahvD-Y7N57v
LV Write Access        read/write
LV Status              available
# open                 0
LV Size                35.00 GB
Current LE             8960
Segments               2
Allocation             inherit
Read ahead sectors     0
Block device           254:2

lvm>

Now, you can check the logical volume devices like this:

HARDY# ls -l /dev/vg
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 2008-05-03 02:42 asm -> /dev/mapper/vg-asm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 2008-05-03 02:41 ocr -> /dev/mapper/vg-ocr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2008-05-03 02:41 vote -> /dev/mapper/vg-vote

You can also check the newly created devices in the /dev/disk/* directories on HARDY:

HARDY# ls -l /dev/disk/*
/dev/disk/by-id:
..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2008-05-03 02:42 dm-name-vg-asm -> ../../mapper/vg-asm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 2008-05-03 02:41 dm-name-vg-ocr -> ../../mapper/vg-ocr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2008-05-03 02:41 dm-name-vg-vote -> ../../mapper/vg-vote
..

/dev/disk/by-path:
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 22:30 pci-0000:00:01.1-scsi-0:0:1:0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-05-03 02:34 pci-0000:00:01.1-scsi-0:0:1:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 22:30 pci-0000:00:01.1-scsi-1:0:1:0 -> ../../sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-05-03 02:35 pci-0000:00:01.1-scsi-1:0:1:0-part1 -> ../../sdc1

You need to install the iscsitarget package using Synaptic Package Manager:

Click here for a bigger view



Now, you need to configure the /etc/ietd.conf file with the Target names and entries for each logical volume. The target names just need to unique within the network and are totally upto your imagination.

HARDY# more /etc/ietd.conf
Target iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote
Lun 0 Path=/dev/vg/vote,Type=fileio
Target iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr
Lun 0 Path=/dev/vg/ocr,Type=fileio
Target iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
Lun 0 Path=/dev/vg/asm,Type=fileio

To enforce these entries, we need to restart the iscsitarget service manually now.

Keep in mind that there is no dash (-) between iscsi and target in the name of the service, as in openfiler 2.2 (openfiler's IET implementation service has the name iscsi-target)

HARDY# /etc/init.d/iscsitarget restart
Removing iSCSI enterprise target devices: succeeded.
Stopping iSCSI enterprise target service: succeeded.
Removing iSCSI enterprise target modules: succeeded.
Starting iSCSI enterprise target service: succeeded.

To double check if the logical volumes have been discovered and published, you can check content of /proc/net/iet/volume on HARDY:

::::::::::::::
/proc/net/iet/volume
::::::::::::::
tid:3 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
lun:0 state:0 iotype:fileio iomode:wt path:/dev/vg/asm
tid:2 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr
lun:0 state:0 iotype:fileio iomode:wt path:/dev/vg/ocr
tid:1 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote
lun:0 state:0 iotype:fileio iomode:wt path:/dev/vg/vote

If you do a more of /proc/net/iet/session, you can clearly see that no iscsi-initiator machine have connected to HARDY yet (there are no session sub-entries under the volume name):

HARDY# more /proc/net/iet/session
tid:3 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
tid:2 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr
tid:1 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote

Here is a quick check of the physical volume, volume group, and logical volume :

HARDY# lvm
lvm> lvscan
ACTIVE '/dev/vg/ocr' [1.00 GB] inherit
ACTIVE '/dev/vg/vote' [1.00 GB] inherit
ACTIVE '/dev/vg/asm' [35.00 GB] inherit

lvm> pvscan
PV /dev/sdb1 VG vg lvm2 [19.99 GB / 0 free]
PV /dev/sdc1 VG vg lvm2 [19.99 GB / 2.98 GB free]
Total: 2 [39.98 GB] / in use: 2 [39.98 GB] / in no VG: 0 [0 ]

lvm> vgscan
Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
Found volume group "vg" using metadata type lvm2
lvm>

Discovering the iscsi targets from another iscsi initiator machine..

We will assume that the iscsi initiator machine name is GUTSY and it has the open-iscsi package installed (this also installs iscsiadm utility along with it). We will also assume that the IP of HARDY (iscsi target) is 192.168.0.7.

You can leave the majority default values in /etc/iscsi.conf. Make sure you disable the CHAP authentication parameter values since we have not configured them in the scsi target.

Discover the new iscsi targets in HARDY:

GUTSY# iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p 192.168.0.7
192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr
192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote

Verify the newly discovered target machine:

GUTSY# sudo iscsiadm -m discovery
192.168.0.6:3260 via sendtargets
192.168.0.7:3260 via sendtargets  --> the new iscsi target got added to the local database

Check the combination of discovered iscsi-target and logical volumes (the new ones are in BLUE color):

GUTSY# sudo iscsiadm -m node
192.168.0.6:3260,1 iqn.2006-01.com.openfiler:openfiler.ocr
192.168.0.6:3260,1 iqn.2006-01.com.openfiler:openfiler.vote
192.168.0.6:3260,1 iqn.2006-01.com.openfiler:openfiler.asm
192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr
192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote

But, at this point, we have no active sessions connected to these targets:

GUTSY# iscsiadm -m session
iscsiadm: No active sessions.

Establish connection to the scsi targets from the initiator:

GUTSY# iscsiadm -m node \
-T iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm \
-p 192.168.0.7 -l
Login session [iface: default, target: iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm, portal: 192.168.0.7,3260]
GUTSY# iscsiadm -m node \
-T iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote \
-p 192.168.0.7 -l
Login session [iface: default, target: iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote, portal: 192.168.0.7,3260]
GUTSY# iscsiadm -m node \
-T iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr \
-p 192.168.0.7 -l
Login session [iface: default, target: iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr, portal: 192.168.0.7,3260]

Verify the newly formed connections:

GUTSY# iscsiadm -m session
tcp: [1] 192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
tcp: [2] 192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote
tcp: [3] 192.168.0.7:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr

It would be useful to enable automatic startup/discovery of these volumes on server and client. For this, you need to do the following:

• On server(where the logical volumes are created):

HARDY# sudo gedit /etc/iscsi/iscsid.conf

Change node.startup=manual to: node.startup = Automatic

GUTSY# sudo /etc/init.d/open-iscsi restart

• On client

GUTSY# sudo iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p <ipaddress>
GUTSY# sudo iscsiadm -m node
-T iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
-p <ipaddress> -o update
-n node.conn[0].startup -v automatic
GUTSY# sudo /etc/init.d/open-iscsi restart

• or reboot both the systems if required (make sure server boots first). To check if the scsi devices are automatically setup and list all your scsi iqns:

GUTSY # sudo iscsiadm -m session

Now assumed that the TCP scsi connections have been formed, let us check if the scsi devices are visible from fdisk -l:

GUTSY# fdisk -l

..
Disk /dev/sdb: 37.5 GB, 37580963840 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 35840 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdc: 1073 MB, 1073741824 bytes
34 heads, 61 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2074 * 512 = 1061888 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdc doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdd: 1073 MB, 1073741824 bytes
34 heads, 61 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2074 * 512 = 1061888 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdd doesn't contain a valid partition table
GUTSY#

The newly discovered devices can also be checked under the contents of /dev/disk/*:

GUTSY# ls -l /dev/disk/*
/dev/disk/by-id:
total 0
..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 23:05 scsi-149455400000000000000000001000000795600000e000000 -> ../../sdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 23:05 scsi-1494554000000000000000000020000004f5600000e000000 -> ../../sdd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 23:05 scsi-149455400000000000000000003000000a45600000e000000 -> ../../sdb
..

/dev/disk/by-path:
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 23:05 ip-192.168.0.7:3260-iscsi-iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm-lun-0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 23:05 ip-192.168.0.7:3260-iscsi-iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr-lun-0 -> ../../sdd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9 2008-05-02 23:05 ip-192.168.0.7:3260-iscsi-iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote-lun-0 -> ../../sdc
..

Relevant messages in the system log of scsi initiator (GUTSY)

# dmesg
...
[ 1156.290868] scsi2 : iSCSI Initiator over TCP/IP
[ 1156.607026] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     IET      VIRTUAL-DISK     0    PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[ 1156.607026] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 73400320 512-byte hardware sectors (37581 MB)
[ 1156.607026] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 1156.607026] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 77 00 00 08
[ 1156.607026] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1156.607111] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 73400320 512-byte hardware sectors (37581 MB)
[ 1156.608275] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 1156.608293] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 77 00 00 08
[ 1156.610635] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1156.610665]  sdb: unknown partition table
[ 1156.619320] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[ 1156.619398] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 1163.865083] scsi3 : iSCSI Initiator over TCP/IP
[ 1164.132972] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     IET      VIRTUAL-DISK     0    PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[ 1164.135287] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] 2097152 512-byte hardware sectors (1074 MB)
[ 1164.136424] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[ 1164.136438] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 77 00 00 08
[ 1164.138002] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1164.140341] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] 2097152 512-byte hardware sectors (1074 MB)
[ 1164.141443] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[ 1164.141460] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 77 00 00 08
[ 1164.144746] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1164.144809]  sdc: unknown partition table
[ 1164.154241] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
[ 1164.154290] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[ 1170.533158] scsi4 : iSCSI Initiator over TCP/IP
[ 1170.798343] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     IET      VIRTUAL-DISK     0    PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[ 1170.798343] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] 2097152 512-byte hardware sectors (1074 MB)
[ 1170.801229] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[ 1170.801263] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 77 00 00 08
[ 1170.806093] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1170.809875] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] 2097152 512-byte hardware sectors (1074 MB)
[ 1170.812347] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[ 1170.812380] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 77 00 00 08
[ 1170.816757] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1170.816757]  sdd: unknown partition table
[ 1170.828375] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
[ 1170.828446] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0

Cross checking incoming sessions at scsi target (HARDY)..

In the meanwhile, in HARDY, the incoming sessions can be checked by:

HARDY# more /proc/net/iet/*
::::::::::::::
/proc/net/iet/session
::::::::::::::
tid:3 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
sid:281474997486080 initiator:iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:950a218cdd1
cid:0 ip:192.168.0.6 state:active hd:none dd:none
tid:2 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr
sid:844424984461824 initiator:iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:950a218cdd1
cid:0 ip:192.168.0.6 state:active hd:none dd:none
tid:1 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote
sid:562949990973952 initiator:iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:950a218cdd1
cid:0 ip:192.168.0.6 state:active hd:none dd:none
::::::::::::::
/proc/net/iet/volume
::::::::::::::
tid:3 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.asm
lun:0 state:0 iotype:fileio iomode:wt path:/dev/vg/asm
tid:2 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.ocr
lun:0 state:0 iotype:fileio iomode:wt path:/dev/vg/ocr
tid:1 name:iqn.2001-04.com.ubuntu:scsi.disk.vg.vote
lun:0 state:0 iotype:fileio iomode:wt path:/dev/vg/vote
root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma#

Conclusion..

Congratulations! You have been successful in creating a poor man's scsi target and discovered them using open source softwares in an easy manner. Now GUTSY can read/write to /dev/vg/asm etc logical volumes. For more machines to do the same thing, similar setup is needed on them and they should also be access these volumes in a clustered fashion. This kind of setup is most beneficial for creating your own Oracle 10g RAC sandbox environment or for doing installs over shared disk.

In this case, we did not format the discovered logical volumes in ext3 or OCFS2 file system, because it is assumed that these volumes will be used as raw devices only.