ESX 4.1 and Openfiler 2.3

[MizComputing]

Hi there,

The following refers to a test environment. It gets blown away a few times a month.

I was using ESXi 4.1 and openfiler 2.3 with no problems. (Openfiler is used to provide iscsi storage)

Then I wanted to use ESX 4.1.

So, I rebuild my two ML115's (zapping everything, datastores, vm's, the lot) and created a virtual openfiler server on both to act as shared storage.

So far no problems, both ESX hosts could see two iscsi datastores.

Now I wanted to setup a new virtual machine...again no problems. I can create the VM.

Now I want to install Windows 2003 on this VM.

I get to the stage where the Windows OS files are being copied to the C: drive and this is where the problems begin. The progress bar (telling what percentage of windows 2003 files have been copied) gets to 2% (sometimes less) and then everything becomes unresponsive.

No only does 2003 not install but the entire host becomes unresponsive...the only way to solve the problem is reboot the host.

Is there a problem with Openfiler 2.3 and ESX 4.1. There loads of advanced attributes for iSCSI in ESX and in openfiler but I'm not sure what would solve the problem (I've tried a few based on postings I've read ut no joy).

As I said ESXi 4.1 worked a treat.

Many thanks.

p.s. I've read various postings about only presenting the iscsi LUN to one host. But I still get the same problem.

p.s. I've only got a single 160gb disk in each ML115 so ESX and the datastore share that disk.

p.p.s Each host only has one NIC....this is a test environment.

[chadwickking]

I am using esxi 4.1 and openfiler on vmware workstation with no issues at all. Have you tried provisioning a NFS LUN from iSCSI to use for your ISO storage? That is what I use and it works great. Can you upload the vmware.log from the VM in question? (This is located in the datastore directory of the VM). Please also upload the log files from the ESXi host - you can do this from the vsphere client. Go to administration>logs "export logs"

Cheers,

Chad King

VCP-410 | Server+

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cwjking

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

[MizComputing]

Cheers Chad

thanks for the offer of assistance...I got fed up with iSCSI and used NFS.

[chadwickking]

Good to hear:

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

Cheers,

Chad King

VCP-410 | Server+

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cwjking

[unsichtbare · Accepted solution]

I use Openfiler 2.3 as an ISCSI target for ESX 4.1 for Dev environments all the time. It works great! One thing I have found will help performance is to to set "write-back" and "fileio" when you map the LUN(s). I am not sure why, but this seems to cause the Openfiler to use available RAM on the server as write cache.

Why your Openfiler fails is problematic, I have experienced occational hickups when trying to use the network mask to try to limit the number of hosts which can see the iSCSI target, for example defining a network of 192.168.1.11/32 on the Openfiler to mask the lun to just one ESX Server.

Good luck!

[MizComputing]

unsichtbare,

NFS!! Man it is so slow even with async...see here https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?id=1995

Its almost unuseable....

I'm going to have to rebuild again and try iscsi again..thanks for the iscsi tip.

I'll get back and award points if proves correct.

[MizComputing]

unsichtbare,

you beauty!

Well done...thats sorted out iSCSI on openfiler...use "write-back" and "fileio" when presenting the LUN.

About LUN presentation...

In the past I have presented openfiler LUNs using the mask 255.255.255.255 but that was presenting to Windows servers.....when presenting to ESX hosts I had to present the entire subnet /24.

Thanks again stars awarded...my test env is flying!