ProLiant BL460c G7 boot from iSCSI SAN

[Smeadley]

Hello,

I am looking to boot  a single ProLiant BL460c G7 from our HDS iSCSI SAN and then install ESXi 5. The  blade has no local storage. The SAN is already used by our production cluster.  In the iSCSI SAN config guide it states to configure the storage so your host  has LUN access. How can you do this if your host isn't installed yet? How can I  configure the LUN to only be accesed by my hosts IQN when I haven't got an IQN  yet?? Do I have to install ESXi first? I'm obviously missing something any help  would be great!

[weinstein5]

Welcome to te Community - you will need to a hardware iSCSI intiator to be able to boot from an iSCSI LUN - check out page 100 of http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-storage...

[Smeadley]

Hi  Dave,

My apologies if I'm  being stupid but the iSCSI SAN guide does state software iSCSI is supported on  ESXi host. pg69.

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

That is true it does but as your correctly point out if the OS is not installed how can you have a software iSCSI intiator - boot from an iSCSI SAN is only supported if you have an independent hardware intiator installed in your ESXi host - 

[Josh26]

Hi,

Honestly, get yourself an SD card or internal USB stick. It'll cost you $20 and it'll save you from ever sitting through a "boot from SAN debugging" session, like you're having now.

[Smeadley]

Thanks guys for you help. It makes sense now, I just wish the documentation was  clearer on what was supported and what was practical.