[ANNOUNCE] nvme-stas v1.0

[Belanger, Martin]

I'm pleased to announce the release of nvme-stas 1.0. 

https://github.com/linux-nvme/nvme-stas

nvme-stas (NVMe STorage Appliance Services) is composed of two services: stafd and stacd. Both services are written in Python and use the newly released libnvme library. The goal is to automate configuration of NVMe-oF TCP on Linux hosts while still allowing manual configuration. See the README.md for details.

stafd (STorage Appliance Finder) automatically locates Discovery Controllers (DC) using mDNS as described in NVM Express Technical Proposal TP8009.  It also, retrieves and caches Discovery Log Page Entries (DLPEs), performs explicit registration with DCs using the Discovery Information Management (DIM) command as described in NVM Express Technical Proposal TP8010, monitors for Asynchronous Event Notifications (AEN) to determine when DLP entries have changed and need to be retrieved again, and monitors / reports errors. If stafd fails to connect to a DC (maybe due to the network being down), stafd will keep trying at regular intervals until a connection can be established.

stacd (STorage Appliance Connector) uses the DLPEs that stafd caches to set up the I/O controller connections. Like stafd, stacd monitors for errors and will try to connect to I/O controllers periodically until a connection can be established.

A special thanks to all the contributors, whether it was for code reviews, documentation, testing, brainstorming sessions, or clarifying the NVMe specifications. 

Martin