Re: [linux-iscsi-devel] [PATCH] handle dos-style carriage returns in DiscoveryFile

[Scott M. F. <sf...@ac...>]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 08:00:29AM -0600, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> N.C.Krishna Murthy (krmurthy) wrote:
> >I don't think we need support for dos style files. 
> 
> If it were an invasive fix, I'd understand that position.
> 
> But the simplicity of the fix, coupled with the very non-obvious failure 
>  mode if anyone else ever hits it (due to the non-printing character), 
> makes it seem like a worthwhile change.  I spent a day tracking down the 
> problem when I hit it (but then I'm no iscsi guru...)  The DiscoveryFile 
> had been sent to me by a support person who wrote it on a Windows 
> machine, apparently.

DiscoveryFile was implemented for developer testing years ago.  It was
intended only for developers, and was never intended to be used by
normal users.  That's why there was absolutely no error checking.  It
was created to simulate bogus SendTargets responses when the iSCSI
spec was being developed, and people were playing fast and loose with
their target implementations.  Being able to insert bogus characters
such as carriage returns is the whole point of DiscoveryFile.  It
exists to allow strange and typically invalid SendTargets responses to
be injected for test purposes.

Unless you're a developer, you should not be using DiscoveryFile.  If
DiscoveryFile is in anyone's documentation, it should be removed.

-- 
Scott M. Ferris,
sf...@ac...