Can a single box running Openfiler support connections from multiple simultaneous ESXi Hosts using ISCSI ?
Has anyone tried this ? any issues or anyone prefer NFS ?
Hi
Openfiler can be configured and it will allow multiple ESX hosts to connect to it over iSCSI, I have done this several times in test environments without any issues.
Obviously it is not a supported configuration and I wouldn't reccomend it in a production environment
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NFS and iSCSI are both very similar. Personally I use Debian to provide NFS shares but OpenFiler is obviously a popular solution.
My notes on it: http://blog.peacon.co.uk/wiki/NFS
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I have tried it with Openfiler 2.3 64bit on a HP DL380 G5. I tried out both NFS and iSCSI and both works fine with about 10 ESX hosts, but have decided to continue with only NFS for ease of management.
chaikeong
This is how I run my homelab - 2x hosts with Openfiler. Works a treat.
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can this Openfiler format the LUN as NTFS and then present it to the Windows Server ?
Yes Openfiler will present an iSCSI LUN to a windows server, so this could then be formnatted as NTFS
I hope this helps
thanks for the reply Scott, so how does one install Openfiler in Vmware ESXi if there is no VMXNet 3 or any vNIC supported ?
I tried this http://itblog.rogerlund.net/2009/06/openfiler-23-on-vsphere-using-vmxnet3.html but still no effect after numerous restart.
If I use openfiler for a test environment I generally do it one of 2 ways
I have it installed as a VM in workstation on my laptop along with 2 esx servers simply to demonstrator and play with some of the functionality of vSphere in a easy and portable lab.
If I want to do anything more demanding with it I wouls install openfiler on some old hardware to create a iSCSI san just for test environments.
I have never actually installed openfiler as a VM on ESX
I hope this helps
Openfiler can be installed as a VM, see here.
Although if you just want a shared storage VM then you could equally use any Linux distro and NFS (for example, Debian or Ubuntu). Officially fedora-8 is the only free and supported NFS server.
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Thanks for the reply Jimbo,
So those plain vanilla Linux VM can be set with NFS so that any windows server can just write into it ?
Yes indeed. Some distributions will need firewall rules added (iptables) but with Debian/Ubuntu it's literally a case of installing the OS (no need for any desktop interface, it's all command line anyway), add nfs and a few other bits with apt-get, format and mount a volume, define the exports, and voila 🙂
http://blog.peacon.co.uk
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i did not try NFS but i know openfiler support iscsi or NFS
Thanks guys for the responses.
Kind Regards,
AWT
Finally, here's what I'vegot, it is configured on my ESXi as VM with the following Openfiler configuration:
R/W Mode: Write-thru
Transfer Mode: blockio
hopefully I'm on the correct path, it seems the performance was maxed out in 93 MB/s
Kind Regards,
AWT