ISCSI / Networking Question

[lucheman]

Hello -

I am having one hell of a time getting my ESX 3.0.1 server configured with Storage from an EMC CX array using ISCSI storage.

I am using the ISCSI software initiator on the ESX Server and have gone through all of the steps in the documentation from both EMC and the Vmware guides/documentation. The problem is that the array does not see the server after I set everything up. They are not communicating properly. I have loaded the naviagent and everything is done as far as I can see on the ESX side (firewall ports, enabling ISCSI, etc...)

My question is when you setup a VMKernel port for ISCSI and give it an IP Address, should I be able to ping it and get replies? I can not now and am thinking that is the problem?

-Jon

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You should be able to ping it and also with vmkping from another host. Do you have any VLANs in place? Are you able to ping the service console port that you have setup for iSCSI traffic?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You should be able to ping it and also with vmkping from another host. Do you have any VLANs in place? Are you able to ping the service console port that you have setup for iSCSI traffic?

[lucheman]

We do have VLANs in place. Originally we had one vswitch with all 4 NICS servicing it. There were 2 different VLANS on it. We tried to setup the VMKernel port on that VSwitch and had no luck. Now we took one NIC out of that VSwitch and have dedicated it to be the ISCSI VMkernel port. It is also on a separate VLAN.

The only service console that I have setup now is the original one that was there before we started setting up ISCSI. Do I need to setup another Service Console port for ISCSI? If so, how do I do that? I didn't see that anywhere in the documentation?

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

You are required to have a SC port with connectivity to the iSCSI device for the software initiator only - see page 70 - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_301_201_server_config.pdf.

So you would need the network configured so that a SC port (you can have more than one), a vmkernel port and iSCSI target are all on the same subnet and VLAN.

[lucheman]

Okay so if I have:

VSwitch0 configured with vmnic0, 1, and 2 handling service console and virtual machine networks all together

and VSwitch1 configured with vmnic3 handling service console 2 and vmkernel port where service console 2 has an ip of 172.16.130.9 and vmkernel has an ip of 172.16.130.10 and they both have the same mask, vlan, and gateway

as long as my iSCSI target is on that same vlan and subnet with an ip of anything on the 172.16.130.x network, it should work right? I am going to try it out tomorrow.

One other question: in the instructions it said to install the EMC Naviagent on the ESX server's console so I did that already. in the config of that client, there is an area that you bind the naviagent to an ip address on the ESX server that is going to be used to discover the iSCSI storage. Would you think I should bind it to the IP of the VMKernel port or the Service Console port?

[lucheman]

Is there a way to test the ability to ping an IP address from the ESX server's console and to ensure that you are using a specific adaptor or vswitch for the test?

For example, if I have four network adaptors and 2 vswitches in an ESX Server, how do I test pinging another server or workstation using vmnic3 or vswitch1?