How to configure OpenFiler v2.3 iSCSI Storage for use with VMware ESX.

Until recently I had been running my ESX VM’s on local disk. This is mostly due to not having enough time to get some shared storage up and running.

I however was determined to get something up and running for my ESX lab so that I can play around with some of ESX’s more powerful, and interesting, features such as DRS, HA and VMotion.

As with most of you money is a serious consideration so as I am not in a position to implement a fibre attached SAN solution – though this would be nice. The next best option is iSCSI. I am running both VMware ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 in my lab and both provide iSCSI functionality by default to connect through to an iSCSI target.

There are a handful of good free (free is always good ) iSCSI software that can be downloaded. Some are standalone installs, others come in the form of virtual appliances and some both.

Here is a list of those that I know of (there will no doubt be many more):

OpenFiler
Free NAS
Xtravirt
EMC Celera (VM) – log into the EMC portal and search for ‘Celerra Simulator’.

I decided to give OpenFiler a go – as I’d heard good things about the latest release, v2.3. Here’s a link to a really good document on the OpenFiler site that details the underlying architecture.

The download link to OpenFiler can be found here.

As you can see there are many different downloads available. I decided to install it on old Shuttle XPC PC I had lying about. This server has 1GB of memory, Single AMD64 2GHz CPU and a single Gigabit NIC all of which are more than adequate for running OpenFiler. I downloaded and installed the x86_64 version.

I then burnt the ISO to CD and installed OpenFiler using the great graphical step by step installation guide provided on their web site.

For this lab install I have used the following network configuration.

OpenFiler (Shuttle PC)
NIC: Single port 1Gb
IP: 10.0.0.1/24

ESX Server (ML110 G5)
ESXi 3.5.0 U3
NIC: Dual port NIC
IP#1 (iSCSI): 10.0.0.10/24
IP#2 (General Traffic): 192.168.1.11/24

ML115 G5 Management Server (Home Brew PC)
OS: Windows 7
NIC: Dual port NIC
IP#1 (iSCSI network – for management of OpenFiler): 10.0.0.2/24, IP#2 (General Traffic): 192.168.1.1/24

Once you have OpenFiler installed you can then access a web based management console which allows you to configure your new OpenFiler installation.

Opening a web browser and pointing it to the IP address (ie: https://<IP of OpenFiler>:446> of the OpenFiler server you should be presented with a logon screen like that below (love the fat Linux penguin).

How to configure OpenFiler v2.3 iSCSI Storage for use with VMware ESX

At the prompt enter ‘openfiler’ for the ‘Username’ and ‘password’ for the password. These details can be changed once you’ve successfully logged onto the management portal along with the ability to create additional accounts and groups.

Step 1 – Network Access Configuration:

The first thing to do is set up the ‘Network Access Configuration’. This is the host or subnet (depending on how granular you want the access to be) you wish to provide access from. Select the ‘System’ tab and from the ‘Network Access Configuration’ section at the bottom of the page enter in either the IP from which you wish to access the OpenFiler from or enter in a whole subnet from which the Open filer will accept traffic from.

As I am running a secure lab environment I am just going to enter in the whole subnet for ease. You may want to be a little more granular if using this in a production or non-secure environment.

Make sure that the ‘Type’ is set to ‘Share’.

Volumes – Important Information (for the clarity of mind).

Before we go any further I just want to point out some potential confusion that can arise when creating, assigning and configuring the various ‘Volume’ parameters within OpenFiler. There are 3 volume items we’ll be dealing with in the next few steps. I personally found this a little confusing at first so thought I’d try and throw down some clarification around this area:

1. Physical Volume – Assigning space on a physical disk for use in a Volume Group.

2. Volume Group – Contains Physical Volumes from which a Logical Volume will be created.

3. Logical Volume (LUN) – This is what is presented through to a server (eg: ESX).

Now with that out of the way.. on with the show!

Follow these steps in order to configure your OpenFiler SAN and present it through to VMware ESX/ESXi.

Step 2 – Create a New Physical Volume:

We need to create a physical volume which we will then present through to a Volume Group. To do this select ‘Block Devices’ from the ‘Volumes section’ menu.

Select ‘Edit Disk’ on the hard disk you want to create this new physical volume.

Scroll to the bottom of the screen and you will see the available spare space on this disk along with some other parameters. If you are not intending to create a RAID set for your physical volume then select ‘Physical volume’ as your partition type and select the ‘Mode’ as ‘Primary’.

Adjust the start and end cylinders to determine the size of physical volume and when satisfied press the ‘Create’ button.

You will then be shown a summary of the partitions on this disk. Notice that the ‘Physical Volume’ I just created appears on the list (bottom).

Step 3 – Create a New Volume Group:

Next we want to create a new ‘Volume Group’ for the ‘Physical Volume’ we created to reside in. Click on the ‘Volumes’ tab and then select ‘Volume Groups’ from the ‘Volume section’ menu on the right hand side menu.

Enter in a ‘Volume group name’ and select (check box) the physical volume to which you wish to associate the Volume Group. Then press ‘Add Volume group’

You should now be presented with a new Volume Group that looks like this:

Step 4 – Create a Volume:

We now want to create a ‘Volume’. Click on ‘Add volume’ from the right hand ‘Volumes section’ menu.

Now select the ‘Volume Group’ you just created and press the ‘Change’ button. You will now be presented with the following screen where you determine the size of the ‘Volume’ your going to create within your ‘Volume Group’.

For this example I’m going to create a ‘Volume’ that occupies the entire space of the ‘Volume Group’. Enter in the ‘Volume Name’ and determine the size by either keying in the required space or using the slider bar. Then for the ‘Filesystem/Volume type’ select ‘iSCSI’. This lasts part is important to all of this working so make sure it is set correctly (ie: iSCSI)!

When your happy with your settings press the ‘Create’ button.

Once the ‘Volume’ is created you will be greeted with a screen with a nice big green coloured pie chart in it which is indicating the amount of the ‘Volume Group’ that the volume has consumed. Which in this example is all of it.

This is now everything to do with creating a volume completed. We now want to enable the connectivity side of things (ie: allowing other PCs/Servers to connect to the OpenFiler SAN).

Step 5 – Enable the iSCSI Target Service:

Click on the ‘Services’ tab of the main window.

Next click on the ‘Services’ tab and enable the ‘iSCSI target server’ (see below). By default it is set to ‘Disabled’. For connecting the OpenFiler SAN through to an VMware ESX/ESXi host we don’t need any of the other services enabling.

Step 6 – Add an iSCSI Target:

Returning to the ‘Volumes’ section of the OpenFiler web interface select ‘iSCSI Targets’ from the ‘Volumes section’ menu on the right hand side of the screen.

We first want to create a new iSCSI target and do by select the first sub-tab called ‘Target Configuration’ in the ‘iSCSI Targets’ section. I personally keep the default ‘Target IQN’ generated by OpenFiler though you can alter it at this stage if your want. Now press the ‘Add’ button.

You will now be given a screen with a summary of the settings for the new iSCSI Target.

Step 7 – Map the LUN:

Now select the ‘LUN Mapping’ tab and click on the ‘Map’ button. There are no other settings that need changing.

Step 8 – Allow access to the iSCSI Target:

Select the ‘Network ACL’ tab and from the ‘Access’ drop down list box select ‘Allow’ (Note: it is set to ‘Deny’ by default) and then press the ‘Update’ button. This allows the IP range we defined in step 1 access to the iSCSI Target we just created.

You may have noticed the next menu tab which is called ‘CHAP Authentication’. In this section you would specify a logon name and password with incoming access to this iSCSI target. I am not worrying about configuring this as it is just a temporary set up for my test lab. Though if you are think about setting something up which will be a little more permanent then I’d definitely recommend enabling CHAP authentication. This’ll need enabling and these credentials specifying on the ESX side of things – but is very easy to do.

Open Filer Configuration Stage Finished!

This is now a basic OpenFiler configuration up and running with a LUN ready to be added to ESX.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are ever thinking of implementing OpenFiler for use with ESX in a production environment then it is highly recommended to keep the iSCSI network separate (for security and performance) from all other general type traffic and to apply CHAP’s encryption. In my lab I have created two VLAN’s on my Linksys SLM2008. One for general network traffic and the other for the iSCSI traffic.

Step 9 – VMware ESX iSCSI Configuration:

Open up the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client (VIC) and select the ESX server that you want to add the iSCSI storage to. From the ‘Configurations’ tab in the right pane select ‘Networking’. You will now be presented with the networking configuration for that ESX server.

As you can see my particular install of ESX is using ESXi.

I have created a second Virtual Switch and have allocated a VMKernel port on the second NIC port (which is patched into the 10.0.0.0/24 VLAN) which I have given a 10.0.0.11/24 IP address. The is the port that the iSCSI traffic will use.

If you are configuring this using ESX 3.5 then you will also have to add a ‘Service Console’ port to this newly created Virtual Switch. If you don’t do this you’ll get this friendly reminder:

We now want to look at the ‘Storage Adapters’. Click on this option in the ‘Hardware’ menu.

You will see that there is an iSCSI Software Adapter already in place – though currently not enabled. All that needs doing is to configure and point it to the OpenFiler LUN(s). Notice how all the iSCSI related details are currently blank.

Click on the ‘iSCSI Software Adapter’ and select ‘Properties’.

The status of the iSCSI Software Adapter is initially set to ‘Disabled’. We want to enable it and assign the relevant details. Click on ‘Configure’. Check the ‘Enable’ status box and click ‘Ok’

The iSCSI properties will now be populated (see below). I won’t go into the format of the iSCSI name and alias though the VMware Infrastructure 3: Advanced Technical Design Guide and Advanced Operations Guide has a good section on iSCSI and explains these details.

Clicking on the ‘Dynamic Discovery’ tab and selecting ‘Add’ we are presented with an ‘Add Send Targets Server’ dialogue box. This is where we’ll enter the IP address of our OpenFiler server/SAN. (Note: the ‘Static Discovery’ tab is only used when using a hardware iSCSI initiator)

After entering in this IP information and pressing ‘Ok’ it can take a little while before iSCSI server is detected.

With these new iSCSI setting we are prompted to re-scan the host. Select ‘Yes’

After ESX has finished its re-scan you should now see the LUN(s) appear that you created in OpenFiler.

With this shared storage and a couple of ESX servers you can now start using some of the more interesting and powerful features of VMware ESX such as VMotion and HA (assuming you have the appropriate license ).

As mentioned this is purely intended as a rough guide to getting OpenFiler up and running with VMware ESX. OpenFiler has plenty of other great features and is worth investing some time into.

Hope this guide helps. Good Luck!

Technorati Tags: VMware,ESX,ESXi,Open Filer,OpenFiler,install,configure,iSCSI,guide,help

Peter on September 17th, 2008

Nice post but that’s a lot of work!

I use my general purpose Solaris mail/file server as my ESX iSCSI storage:

zpool create mirror c0d0 c1d0 mypool
zfs create -o shareiscsi=on -V 250TB mypool/vmstorage

..that’s all that’s required on the server side and I get all the advantages of ZFS too.

Peter

[Reply]
don on September 17th, 2008

Peter, sure, but anytime you use a cli vs a gui the APPEARANCE is shorter. But really, however you setup the iSCSI piece, you still have to setup vmware iSCSI and that is over half this article.

[Reply]
Ced on September 23rd, 2008

Hi

You show only ONE ESX server in your configuration. Have you tested with 2?
Because Openfiler authorize only one iSCSI connection at a time… How do you do to connect the two ESX and test HA, Vmotion and so one?

Regards,
Ced.

[Reply]
JFK on November 7th, 2008

Late reply, better than never

I just finished implementing 3 ESX servers targeting the same 2 LUNs provided by an OpenFiler 2.3 server. I’m here to tell you that vMotion works flawlessly, watching the status page of OF I don’t see any reason for concern with system resources.

Pre-requisite: Virtual Center, I’m using 2.5.

[Reply]
ziyaei on November 16th, 2008

thank you very muchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Reply]
HazeWare on November 23rd, 2008

I a noob to VMware, so bare with me. Im trying to build lab VMware for my house, I’m stuck at the networking part where you mentioned you’ve created a second virtual switch with VLAN. I just have a regular hub and Im unable to perform a VLAN. Am I required to perform a VLAN? Plus, I dont see the “ISCSI software adapter” option, under storage adapters.

VMware ESX 3.5

[Reply]
HazeWare on November 23rd, 2008

I have updated the security profile / firewall for the software iscsi client and still cant see the iscsi software adapter under storage adapters… am i doing something wrong

[Reply]
Zane on November 24th, 2008

Very appreciated. By following your guides, I am able to create iscsi to share data between 2 esxi servers.

[Reply]
rockymtntuna on November 25th, 2008

I’ve followed the instructions and can make the connection but show 0 targets.

Any ideas? I’m using ESXi 4.5.0 and openfiler 2.3

Have checked the LUN mapping and network ACL access on openfiler but no luck.

The iscsi connection is on a separate NIC and switch in ESXI.

[Reply]
Christian on November 27th, 2008

I’have a few questions – probably someone can help me in this (esx 3.5U2 and openfile 2.3).

The iqn entered in the esx server (name change requires a reboot) must be the inititor name (and therefore different from the iqn of the iqn target name as defined in the openfiler – is this right ?

I have 2 esx-servers – for failover they should connect to the same storage. Can they connect to the same iqn or is it better to provide a secondary target iqn for the second esx ?

After some experiments with bonded/trunked ports it looks like my share was damaged (coud not reconnect). Are there any tools to check vmfs storages or to

[Reply]
Segway Chauffeur on November 27th, 2008

The only thing that took a lot of work was the time Simon put into making this post so the rest of us would spend LESS time getting it up and running. Thank Simon!

[Reply]
Al on January 26th, 2009

I have two VI ESX 3.5 boxes each with 2 NICs on an isolated 192 subnet and an Openfiler 2.3 with 2 NICs on the same subnet. How would I configure HA without a DNS server? Thx!

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on January 27th, 2009

Hi Al,

I’m not sure I 100% understand the question. Are you talking about HA on ESX or OpenFiler?

Cheers,

Simon

[Reply]
Donald POmpey on January 29th, 2009

Hi my name is Donald. i am trying to configure openfiler iscsi for my VMware ESX Server if you can help i would appreciate it very mach.

Thank you
Donald

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on January 31st, 2009

Hi my name is Donald. i am trying to configure openfiler iscsi for my VMware ESX Server if you can help i would appreciate it very mach.

Thank you
Donald

Hi Donald,

What problem(s) are you experiencing?

Cheers,

Si

[Reply]
Anthony on February 4th, 2009

Hoping someone can help me test OF 2.3 and esxi iscsi connection. Steps are below:
1. Installed OF 2.3 as a vm on esxi (host#1). (Did not use appliance)
2. configured iScsi on OF and was able to map the lun.
3. On a separate esxi (host#2), I’m trying to connect to the iScsi target.
a. On host#2 I created a iscsi connection using vmkernel on a seperate port from the esxi host management network
b. My ip address for the iscsi connection is in the same subnet as my OF vm.
c. On the iSCSI Software Adapter (vmhba32) of host#2, I’ve enabled and configured the iScsi initiator
d. On OF, the IP of the step(a) is allowed access to the target.

questions:

1. No luns appear after scan job. What happen? what have I missed?

[Reply]
CDub on February 12th, 2009

I followed your guide and I have created an iscsi target in OF 2.3 and I mapped the LUN and granted access to the ESX server. I configured the iscsi storage adapter in VI but I cannot get it to see the storage any help or advise out there?

[Reply]
rockymtntuna on February 12th, 2009

In my case I could not get the iscsi storage to show up until I corrected the values under “network access configuration”

for my network the values are:

name: localnet
network/host: 10.1.10.0
netmask: 255.255.255.0
type: share

[Reply]
Cdub on February 12th, 2009

OF has an ip of 192.168.0.155
my ESXi box has an ip of 192.168.0.127

I added the ip for my esx box in OF and also added the ip access in the Network ACL list but I try to add the ip for OF in Virtual Infrastructure and it scans but does not find any available storage. I only have one nic so I cannot create a virtual switch for iscsi.

I have both connected directly to an 8 port gigabit switch and my OF box has two nic’s that are teamed to the ip listed above.

Any ideas on how to get this working?

I am running ESXi off of a USB Flash drive but everything seems to be working I can get into Unsupported mode on ESX and it sees everything correctly it is just not seeing the iscsi storage on OF.

[Reply]
Cdub on February 12th, 2009

Did you have to open up port 3260 on either OF or your ESX server or both? just wondering if this could be my issue. I have a D-link 8 port gigabit switch that both my ESX and OF are plugged into and the switch is plugged into a D-link wireless N router.

[Reply]
Sam on February 13th, 2009

Awesome instructions. I was able to hook up my lab in one afternoon. I am also getting more involved in ESX, Sharepoint, Windows Server 2003K, 2008, and SBS.
Thanks for such good references. I will add you to my favorites.

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on February 13th, 2009

Awesome instructions. I was able to hook up my lab in one afternoon. I am also getting more involved in ESX, Sharepoint, Windows Server 2003K, 2008, and SBS.
Thanks for such good references. I will add you to my favorites.

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the feed back. I have a ton of ideas for future articles so keep checking back.

Cheers,

Si

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on February 13th, 2009

Did you have to open up port 3260 on either OF or your ESX server or both? just wondering if this could be my issue. I have a D-link 8 port gigabit switch that both my ESX and OF are plugged into and the switch is plugged into a D-link wireless N router.

Hi CDub,

Are you still having problems with this?

[Reply]
Cdub on February 13th, 2009

I figured out the problem in Open Filer I had to set my subnet mask for my ESX box to 255.255.255.255 and then it will see the iSCSI shares in ESX if I set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 it will not see the iSCSI volume in ESX. Hope this helps others out there trying to set this up on a 192.168.x.x subnet.

[Reply]
Peter Barfield on February 14th, 2009

I also found that the iSCSI adapter in VMWare wouldn’t detect the LUN for some reason so I also had to edit the file on OpenFiler /etc/initiators.deny and remark the line defining the target. (using vim from command line)
Not sure what implications this has but it works for my test environment.

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on February 14th, 2009

I also found that the iSCSI adapter in VMWare wouldn’t detect the LUN for some reason so I also had to edit the file on OpenFiler /etc/initiators.deny and remark the line defining the target. (using vim from command line)
Not sure what implications this has but it works for my test environment.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for taking to time to let us know – that will no doubt help others.

Cheers,

Si

[Reply]
Timothy on February 15th, 2009

This looks great! I tried to connect 2 ESXi servers to the same LUN on my iSCSI SAN (Buffalo Terastation Pro II iSCSI), and each time that I connect the ESXi server, it wipes out the storage on the LUN, and I cannot connect with the 1st ESXi anymore.

I have only 1 question: How do you connect 2 ESXi servers to the same iSCSI LUN simultaneously?

(I’d like to use VMotion)

[Reply]
Anthony on February 17th, 2009

For those who were able to map the iscsi lun on OF but was not successful connecting the luns after the scan in esxi. When creating the connection to the OF server, make sure you use the same “Target IQN” as state on the OF server. This should solve your problem.

[Reply]
Anthony on February 18th, 2009

One other comment: when you enter the ip of the iscs initiator host(s), make sure you use subnet 255.255.255.255.

Good luck to all.

[Reply]
CDub on February 18th, 2009

I had stated that in an earlier post because it ties the single ip if you have your subnet mask as 255.255.255.0 you have a range of possible ip’s when it is set to 255.255.255.255 there can only be one ip assigned.

[Reply]
Kiwi Si on February 18th, 2009

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments and tips for others – they are most appreciated.

Keep them coming.

Si

[Reply]
MickDann on March 11th, 2009

Excellent article ! I’ve had ESXi and OpenFiler running for months but try as I might I could not get the ESXi host to find the iSCSI target – it seems I’d set the volume up incorrectly, but thanks to your excellent instructions it’s now working – thanks very much for sharing.

Mick

[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
March 19th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Hi Mick,

Thanks for the feed back

I’m glad it is now all up and running for you.

All the best,

Si

[Reply]
lostbeatle on March 17th, 2009

Simon, this is splendid, thank you very much. Do you have a preference between the ML110 or ML115? I can’t really see a difference. Also, if you were to buy some storage for a home lab – any frugal recommendations? Is the Shuttle http://eu.shuttle.com/ your preferred choice?
Kind thanks
James

[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
March 19th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Hi James,

I have no real preference between the two of them TBH. They are both really good servers and ideal for the ole home/work lab. I guess the ML115 G5 (AMD) has the advantage over the ML110 G5 (Intel) at the moment as it offers a quad core CPU – as opposed to the ML110’s dual core.

I do like the Shuttle XPC’s because of their small size. I only used one for my filer as I had one lying around that used be my main PC a few years ago.

OpenFiler is pretty flexible when it comes to the hardware it’ll run on and doesn’t require a particularly large amount of CPU or memory resource. A decent 1Gb Ethernet adapter is highly desirable though.

If you have some old kit kicking around you could most likely get it running on that.

Failing that EBay has some cheap older shuttles for sale quite often. My shuttle is a Shuttle XPCSK21(G10) AMD model.

Let us know how you get on.

Simon

[Reply]
Jay on March 27th, 2009

Great article!

Now I need to find a spare box to install Openfiler!

[Reply]
Vladan on March 27th, 2009

Great post. I have done a slighly different approach, using less Hadrware material (if you are on the budget…). I have used only 2 physical boxes.

Check this: http://www.vladan.fr/how-to-configure-openfiler-iscsi-storage-for-use-with-vmware-esx/

Vladan

[Reply]
Pierre on April 16th, 2009

Excellent!

I was stuck for hours trying and retrying settings but it would not work.

Finally I found this tutorial and I saw right away that I missed the “Map LUN to Target”. As soon as I did that it worked.

Also, thanks for explaining the different types of volumes and that I could disable all other services besides iSCSI Target, that cleared stuff up for me.

Great job.

[Reply]
rickyhg on April 24th, 2009

Awesome. This is the second post on this website that I have found EXTREMELY useful. Many thanks for that. I followed these instructions and everything just worked.

Now, how about a post on how to add OpenFiler to a Windows 2008 Active Directory

Thanks Again

Richard

[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
April 30th, 2009 at 7:11 am
Hi Richard,

Thanks for stopping by TechHead. Glad you found some of the posts useful.

Hmm, a post on adding OpenFiler to W2K8 AD could be good. I’ll add it to my list of articles to write.

All the best,

Si

[Reply]
BrianAU on April 29th, 2009

Thanks for a great article, just starting to work up a Windows 2008 cluster. Really appreciate the guidance on OpenFiler, iSCSI and vmware.

[Reply]
k995 on April 29th, 2009

I also had problems finding the luns (keep getting 0 targets) untill I edited the /etc/initiators.deny file on the openfiler.

Just open with VI, retyped the last word ALL and saved and then it worked.

THX everyone for the help.

[Reply]
dots on May 5th, 2009

Worked like a charm

Thanx a lot m8

[Reply]
ethanone on May 6th, 2009

I need to have a single volume for my VM greater than 2TB. What is the largest single volume you can make with an iSCSI solution? I think ESXi can only see a LUN up to 2TB, but I thought you could make a bigger datastore than that. Has anyone had experience over 2TB?

[Reply]
lukasware Reply:
May 9th, 2009 at 12:12 am
OF will export an iSCSI LUN greater than 2TB
(i’ve done 5) the OS have to support GPT partitioning (usually 64 bit OSes do including XP64 and Vsita 64. VMware ESX does not and it’s 32bit until ESX 4.0 (end of may?). But you can span mutiple 2TB VMFS together I think…

[Reply]
whtech on June 3rd, 2009

Anybody tried Openfiler 2.3 with vSphere 4.0 yet?

[Reply]
Heiko Verlande Reply:
June 8th, 2009 at 11:17 am
@whtech Yes, i installed ESX 4.0 with Openfiler 2.3. Read about it [url=http://blog.verlande.nl/2009/06/free-shared-nassan-storage-using-openfiler-23-nfs-on-vmware-esx-40/]here[/url].

[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
June 9th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Hi whtech, I sure have and it works just fine. In fact I found connecting to the Open Filer iSCSI target from ESX 4.0 to be quicker.

[Reply]
lukasware on June 8th, 2009

OF works great with ESXi 4.0, make sure you get the 2.3.1 “respin” which has 2.6.26 kernel as this installs better on modern hardware. I skip all that network access stuff and just create the iSCSI lun (as above, but with write-back and fileio) and then map it (as above). Saves time because the ACL was jsut another barrier to getting vmotion and vstorage motion working. with ESX/i 4.0 3x I/O performance improvement and 10x iSCSI performance improvement (and finally support for jumbo frames) makes sense to pretend ESX3.5 never existed.

[Reply]
Nyle on July 1st, 2009

Ok, so I easily got iSCSI up and running with these great instructions. Well except for one problem – I’d like to have two LUNs. One for a 2TB volume and the other for a 1TB volumes.

I’ve tried just mapping the two LUNs to the one target without luck and then tried creating two targets and mapping one to each. No matter what I do I can’t get the second LUN to show up in the iSCSI Software Adapter.

I’m using ESX 3.5.4 and Virtual Center 2.5.4. I’ve tried editing the initiators.deny file as suggested without luck.

Does anyone have any ideas or is this something that isn’t supported by Openfiler?

Thanks.

[Reply]
Nyle Reply:
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Never mind, I got it working by removing all the configuration after a full upgrade and reboot and doing it all again.

Then I found out about VMWare LUN size limit. My 3TB LUN only showed as a much smaller storage location. So, I undid the larger 3TB volume and broke it into two separate 1.5TB volumes. Then mapped those two to the target.

I now have three LUNs – 1TB, 1.5TB and 1.5TB.

Once all my ESX servers could see it I then added a VMFS 2 storage locations. The second one I added the second 1.5TB LUN to as an extent.

Now I’m fully in business. Thanks for these great instructions.

[Reply]

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