[PVE-User] stmfadm on Linux ZFS storage - or how to use Intel X550 NICs with Linux/ZFS

[Mikhail]

This worked. I was able to compile ixgbe driver from Intel's website:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/14687/Network-Adapter-Driver-for-PCI-E-10-Gigabit-Network-Connections-under-Linux-

The following side-forum post explains in general how to compile Intel's
driver -
https://forum.ovh.co.uk/showthread.php?5616-Standard-Kernels-with-Ubuntu-Debian&s=8d6fc6985815e4ae26327b6bf2a835d1&p=74398&viewfull=1#post74398

The above step allowed me to use Intel's X550 10GiGE network cards with
Debian Jessie.

Next thing was to return my storage system from 4.3.0-0.bpo.1-amd64
kernel to stock Debian Jessie 3.16.0-4-amd64 in order to compile
iscsitarget. This was a bit tricky due to unresolved Grub issues on ZFS
systems - see this thread: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/grub/issues/22

So finally I was able to get back my storage system to Debian Jessie
with 3.16.0-4-amd64 with ZFS running on root filesystem. Next thing I
did was to add "iscsitarget" (IET) package via apt-get. DKMS kernel
support was built fine as expected. And finally all these steps allowed
me to bring my ZFS storage online together with Proxmox - the whole
setup now runs with support of newest Intel X550 10GiGE network cards.

Right now I'm running various disk tests inside Proxmox vm guest - so
far I'm seeing 330-350 MB/s writes on ZFS-over-iSCSI that runs on top of
10GiGE networking. Obviously this number is limited by my HDDs on
storage system - running RAID10 ZFS setup with 4 x 4TB 7k2 SAS drives.

I wish good luck to everyone looking to explore ZFS with latest hardware
drivers. Cheers!

On 03/08/2016 10:02 PM, Mikhail wrote:
> Another possible solution is to try to compile Intel's driver from
> sources using stock Debian Jessie kernel-sources and run that driver.
> This could be an option, will give it a try.