nvme

spdk_nvme_ctrlr_cmd_security_send() and spdk_nvme_ctrlr_cmd_security_receive()
were added to support sending or receiving security protocol data to or from
nvme controller.

spdk_nvme_ns_get_extended_sector_size() was added. This function includes
the metadata size per sector (if any). spdk_nvme_ns_get_sector_size() still
returns only the data size per sector, not including metadata.

New send_nvme_cmd RPC was added to allow sending NVMe commands directly to NVMe controller.
See the send_nvme_cmd documentation
for more details.

Build System

New configure options, --with-shared and --without-shared
[default], provide the capability to build, or not, SPDK shared libraries.
This includes the single SPDK shared lib encompassing all of the SPDK
static libs as well as individual SPDK shared libs corresponding to
each of the SPDK static ones. Although the production of the shared
libs conforms with conventional version naming practices, such naming
does not at this time confer any SPDK ABI compatibility claims.

bdev

spdk_bdev_alias_del_all() was added to delete all alias from block device.

A new virtual bdev module has been added to perform at rest data encryption using the DPDK CryptoDev
Framework. The module initially uses a software AESNI CBC cipher with experimental support for the
Intel QAT hardware accelerator also currently implemented with support for CBC cipher. Future work
may include additional ciphers as well as consideration for authentication. NOTE: this module is
currently marked as experimental. Do not use in production.

The RAID virtual bdev module is now always enabled by default. The configure --with-raid and
--without-raid options are now ignored and deprecated and will be removed in the next release.

Enforcement of bandwidth limits for quality of service (QoS) has been added to the bdev layer.
See the new set_bdev_qos_limit
documentation for more details. The previous set_bdev_qos_limit_iops RPC method introduced at
18.04 release has been deprecated. The new set_bdev_qos_limit RPC method can support both
bandwidth and IOPS limits.

spdk_bdev_config_json() and corresponding get_bdevs_config RPC was removed.

Environment Abstraction Layer and Event Framework

The size parameter of spdk_mem_map_translate is now a pointer. This allows the
function to report back the actual size of the translation relative to the original
request made by the user.

A new structure spdk_mem_map_ops has been introduced to hold memory map related
callbacks. This structure is now passed as the second argument of spdk_mem_map_alloc
in lieu of the notify callback.

DPDK 18.08

The DPDK submodule has been updated to the DPDK 18.08 release. SPDK will now automatically
utilize DPDK's dynamic memory management with DPDK versions >= 18.05.1.

Hugepages can be still reserved with [-s|--mem-size <size>] option at application startup,
but once we use them all up, instead of failing user allocations with -ENOMEM, we'll try
to dynamically reserve even more. This allows starting SPDK with --mem-size 0 and using
only as many hugepages as it is really needed.

Due to this change, the memory buffers returned by spdk_*malloc() are no longer guaranteed
to be physically contiguous.

I/OAT

I/OAT driver can now reinitialize I/OAT channels after encountering DMA errors.

iscsi target

Parameter names of set_iscsi_options and get_iscsi_global_params RPC
method for CHAP authentication in discovery sessions have been changed to
align with construct_target_node RPC method. Old names are still usable
but will be removed in future release.

set_iscsi_discovery_auth and set_iscsi_target_node_auth RPC methods have
been added to set CHAP authentication for discovery sessions and existing
target nodes, respectively.

The SPDK iSCSI target supports an AuthFile which can be used to load CHAP
shared secrets when the iSCSI target starts. SPDK previously provided a
default location for this file (/usr/local/etc/spdk/auth.conf) if none was
specified. This default has been removed. Users must now explicitly specify
the location of this file to load CHAP shared secrets from a file, or use
the related iSCSI RPC methods to add them at runtime.

iscsi initiator

The SPDK iSCSI initiator is no longer considered experimental and becomes
a first-class citizen among bdev modules. The basic usage has been briefly
described in the bdev user guide: iSCSI bdev

Miscellaneous

The SPDK application framework can now parse long name command line parameters.
Most single-character parameters have a long name equivalent now. See the
Command Line Parameters documentation
for details or use the --help command line parameter to list all available
params.

bdevperf -s param (io size) was renamed to -o as -s had been already
used by existing apps for memory size.

bdevio can now accept all SPDK command line parameters. The config now has to
be provided with -c or --config param.

The following ioat/perf and nvme/perf parameters were renamed as well:
-s (io size) to -o
-d (mem size) to -s

The ReactorMask config file parameter has been deprecated. Users should
use the -m or --cpumask command line option to specify the CPU core mask
for the application.

Default config file pathnames have been removed from iscsi_tgt, nvmf_tgt
and vhost. Config file pathnames may now only be specified using the
-c command line option.

Users may no longer set DPDK_DIR in their environment to specify the
location of the DPDK installation used to build SPDK. Using DPDK_DIR
has not been the documented nor recommended way to specify the DPDK
location for several releases, but removing it ensures no unexpected
surprises for users who may have DPDK_DIR defined for other reasons.
Users should just use the "configure" script to specify the DPDK
location before building SPDK.

Although we know that many developers still use Python 2 we are officially
switching to Python3 with requirement that all new code must be valid also
for Python 2 up to the EOL which is year 2020.

Invoking interpreter explicitly is forbidden for executable scripts. There
is no need to use syntax like "python ./scripts/rpc.py". All executable
scripts must contain proper shebang pointing to the right interpreter.
Scripts without shebang musn't be executable.

A Python script has been added to enable conversion of old INI config file
to new JSON-RPC config file format. This script can be found at
scripts/config_converter.py. Example how this script can be used:

cat old_format.ini | scripts/config_converter.py > new_json_format.json

Sock

Two additional parameters were added to spdk_sock_get_addr() for the server
port and client port. These parameters are named "sport" and "cport"
respectively.

Virtio

The following RPC commands have been deprecated:

• construct_virtio_user_scsi_bdev
• construct_virtio_pci_scsi_bdev
• construct_virtio_user_blk_bdev
• construct_virtio_pci_blk_bdev
• remove_virtio_scsi_bdev

The construct_virtio_* ones were replaced with a single construct_virtio_dev
command that can create any type of Virtio bdev(s). remove_virtio_scsi_bdev
was replaced with remove_virtio_bdev that can delete both Virtio Block and SCSI
devices.

Blobfs

spdk_file_get_id() returning unique ID for the file was added.

JSON

Added jsonrpc-client C library intended for issuing RPC commands from applications.

Added API enabling iteration over JSON object:

• spdk_json_find()
• spdk_json_find_string()
• spdk_json_find_array()
• spdk_json_object_first()
• spdk_json_array_first()
• spdk_json_next()

Blobstore

Blobstore I/O operations are now based on io_units, instead of blobstore page size.
The io_unit size is now the same as the underlying block device's block size.
Logical volumes built on a block device with 512B block size can now be used as boot devices
in QEMU.

SPDKCLI

The SPDKCLI interactive command tool for managing SPDK is no longer considered experimental.
Support for the iSCSI and NVMe-oF targets has been added.