MaxSessions defaults to no limit

[Paul Betts]

Binary package hint: iscsitarget

The default value for MaxSessions is zero, meaning an unlimited number of concurrent connections to the same disk - the only time this is reasonable is with read-only media or via very specialized clustered filesystem scenarios.

It's extremely easy with the default setting to corrupt a disk if two computers connect at the same time, and most people using iSCSI are using it with read-write volumes. A far safer default would be to default MaxSessions to 1, and make the uncommon scenario be a non-default.

I really want to emphasize, the defaults CORRUPT DATA unless you are extremely careful - many initiators (both Windows and Mac's globalSAN initiator) will try to set up a "persistent" connection where it will log into the disk whenever possible; leave one of these machines on by accident then connecting to the disk on another machine means the filesystem is trashed. This *really* sucks.