RTSLib is a Python library that provides the API to the Linux Kernel SCSI Target subsystem, its backend storage objects subsystem as well as third-party Target Fabric Modules. It is part of LIO.

RTSLib allows direct manipulation of all SCSI Target objects like storage objects, SCSI targets, TPGs, LUNs and ACLs. It is part of the Linux Kernel's SCSI Target's userspace management tools.

RTSLib is used as the foundation for targetcli, the Linux Kernel's SCSI Target configuration CLI and shell, in embedded storage systems and appliances, commercial NAS and SAN systems as well as a tool for sysadmins writing their own scripts to configure the SCSI Target subsystem.

RTSLib is currently part of several Linux distributions, either under the rtslib name or python-rtslib. In most cases, simply installing the version packaged by your favorite Linux distribution is the best way to get it running.

The packages are very easy to build and install from source as long as you're familiar with your Linux Distribution's package manager:

1. Clone the github repository for RTSLib using git clone https://github.com/Datera/rtslib.git.

2. Make sure build dependencies are installed. To build RTSLib, you will need:

   • GNU Make.
   • python 2.6 or 2.7
   • A few python libraries: pyparsing, ipaddr, netifaces, configobj, python-epydoc
   • A working LaTeX installation and ghostscript for building the documentation, for example texlive-latex.
   • Your favorite distribution's package developement tools, like rpm for Redhat-based systems or dpkg-dev and debhelper for Debian systems.

3. From the cloned git repository, run make deb to generate a Debian package, or make rpm for a Redhat package.

4. The newly built packages will be generated in the dist/ directory.

5. To cleanup the repository, use make clean or make cleanall which also removes dist/* files.

The RTSLib packages do ship with a full API documentation in both HTML and PDF formats, typically in /usr/share/doc/python-rtslib/doc/.

Depending on your Linux distribution, the documentation might be shipped in a separate package.

An other good source of information is the http://linux-iscsi.org wiki, offering many resources such as (not necessarily up-to-date) copies of the RTSLib API Reference Guide (HTML at http://linux-iscsi.org/Doc/rtslib/html or PDF at http://linux-iscsi.org/Doc/rtslib/rtslib-API-reference.pdf), and the Targetcli User's Guide at http://linux-iscsi.org/wiki/targetcli.

All contributions, suggestions and bugfixes are welcome!

To report a bug, submit a patch or simply stay up-to-date on the Linux SCSI Target developments, you can subscribe to the Linux Kernel SCSI Target development mailing-list by sending an email message containing only subscribe target-devel to mailto:majordomo@vger.kernel.org

The archives of this mailing-list can be found online at http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.linux.scsi.target.devel

LIO was developed by Datera, Inc. http://www.datera.io

The original author and current maintainer is Jerome Martin jxm@netiant.com