Using the Automated Connectivity Client (ACC) for Linux, nvme-stas (Storage Appliance Services), has the following advantages:
Automatic discovery of NVMe Discovery Controllers on the same subnet using mDNS. When nvme-stas discovers a Discovery Controller on the same subnet, it will automatically and persistently connect to it.
Asynchronous Event Notification (AEN) handling.
Many customizable parameters that control the TCP sessions and behavior of the Linux NVMe/TCP host.
Feature | NVME-STAS | NVME-CLI |
Prevent CDC connections on an IP protocol not used for NVMe/TCP. Use the IP address family filter | Yes – /etc/stas/*.conf: ip-family=[ipv4, ipv6, ipv4+ipv6] | No |
Automatic explicit registration with Central Discovery Controller (CDC) per TP8010 | Yes | No - Manual only: nvme dim |
Automatic (zeroconf) discovery of Direct/Central Discovery Controller (DDC/CDC) | Yes – stas registers with the Avahi daemon to be notified when CDCs or DDCs are detected by mDNS service discovery and automatically connects to them. | No |
Manual Discovery Controller (DC) config with explicit include/exclude | Yes – /etc/stas/stafd.conf: controller=, exclude= Exclusion is needed to eliminate unwanted mDNS-discovered DCs. | N/A as auto-discovery is not possible Use /etc/nvme/discovery.conf to include controllers. |
Manual I/O Controller (IOC) config with explicit include/exclude | Yes – /etc/stas/stacd.conf: controller=, exclude= Exclusion is needed to eliminate unwanted IOCs from log pages. | No |
AEN monitoring and Auto Connection/Disconnect for Fabric Zoning support | Yes – React to Fabric Zoning changes (configurable in /etc/stas/stacd.conf) Connect and Disconnect with retries. | Partial– React to Fabric Zoning changes Connect-only without retries (one-shot udev rule) |
Layer 3 connectivity without static routes | Yes – Automatic/Configurable (/etc/stas/*.conf: ignore-iface=) | Yes - Manual (--host-iface) |
Explicit exclude of specific interfaces used for discovery | Yes – /etc/stas/*.conf: exclude = host-iface=<interface> | No |
Human-friendly nvme list | No – stas only displays data in JSON format (for now). Use nvme list -v | Yes - nvme list -v |