Setting up Opensolaris as an ISCSI Target

[tbrown]

Install OpenSolaris >= Build 60

Install a full developer copy.

When the system is finished installing

Run the following commands

iscsitadm modify admin -d /export/home

This will put all iSCSI containers in /export/home

iscsitadm create target -z 10g test

Create a Target named Test thats 10GB

Thats it. Setup ESX and scan for LUNs as normal.

[weili]

Hello,

I installed the sol-nv-b55b-x86-dvd and ESX cannot connect. I also tried installing the latest published iscsi target at the opensolaris website. Which installation did you try?

Thanks,

Michael

[Paul_Lalonde]

Mike,

tbrown specified that you need an OpenSolaris build of 60 or greater. This is because Sun incorporated ESX-specific changes into build 60 to make it work.

It sounds like you downloaded the Sun Express build (quarterly release). You need to download the monthly build.

Paul

[weili]

Paul,

I'm sure that I downloaded the express iso. Do you have a link for me where i can find the monthly builds? I think i have tomatoes in front of my eyes..

Thanks,

Michael

[Paul_Lalonde]

Solaris Express community edition:

http://www.opensolaris.org/os/downloads/sol_ex_dvd/

Hey, they're at build 61 now!

Paul

[weili]

that was too simple. Now I know what express mean. I will download and let you know.

[Paul_Lalonde]

Please post your results with the iSCSI configuration; tbrown and I are interested in the performance and reliability of this offering and would like to see it deployed in different environments for testing.

Paul

[qmcnetwork]

Anyone have any success with OpenSolaris' iSCSI target on ESX 3.0.1?

We have a hand-me-down HP DL380 G3 with a couple trays of 146GB disk. Installed OpenSolaris b62 and created a ZFS zpool and carved out a 512GB LUN. ESX could see it just fine and things seemed to perform pretty well.

However, when creating additional LUNs we ran into the problem where ESX sees the additional LUNs as multipaths. So instead of 2 or 3 LUNs it saw 1 LUN with additional paths set to Standby.

We decided to ignore that and just create a larger LUN instead. This time it found the 2TB LUN fine, but didn't list the right size. It just showed as 0.00B and it wouldn't show up when I go to Add Storage in VC or when I fdisk from the CLI.

A 2TB LUN should be no problem, right? Any ideas or success with OpenSolaris that you could share?

Thanks,

Jon

[qmcnetwork]

I have an update. We got ESX to see the storage properly by resizing the LUN from 2TB to 1.86TB. Weird. I'm not sure if it's the way Opensolaris presents the LUN or if it was an ESX limitation.

By the way, performance seems to be pretty good with ZFS and iSCSI. We have 2 interfaces configured in a port group (IPMP) in Opensolaris for load balancing. I'm pretty happy, I hope VMware can bless Opensolaris as an iSCSI target platform.

[Paul_Lalonde]

Well, it won't happen unless someone within the OpenSolaris / SUN group takes on the self-certification process. VMware now provides hardware / software vendors with the tools to certify the products themselves. VMware only "blesses" the certification results

Get on the horn with the Sun people and get them on the bandwagon!

Paul

[natedev]

Was trying to do the same thing with our DL380 G3 (Smart Array 6400 Controller). I downloaded the Solaris 10 drivers for the thing and made a floppy but Solaris Express CE b62 and b63 don't find anything on it when I try to Apply Driver Update. Sees my brand-new LSISAS3800-X and the drives in my connected Dell PowerVault MD1000 but can't seem to do anything on the Smart Array 6400 which is what I wanted to boot off of.

[Roman_Romano]

qmcnetwork,

i experienced the same issue: created two LUNs on an Opensolaris box and only the first is seen, the other is seen as an additional path to the first.

I created a few other iscsitarget boxes (another Opensolaris and a Openfiler one) and even though these were completely separate targets, ESX's initiator regarded them as additional paths to the first target: the canonical paths was the same for all three targets. Does this mean that my ESX box can only ever have ONE iscsi target registered with it? surely not! is it a known issue with the ESX software initiator?

If anyone knows, let me know.

Regards

Roman

[natedev]

Hi Roman,

What build of Solaris Express, Community Edition are you running?

-Nate

[Roman_Romano]

natedev,

I too had issues installing on DL380 (G4 and 6i array controller).

I ended up downloading the ITU Driver Update Floppy (Masayuki Murayama's NIC drivers packaged on a Solaris Driver Update Floppy) from http://www.tools.de/opensource/solaris/itu/newboot/

Then i copied in to the sol_211 folder the files from the HP Solaris 10 driver disk (http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/26717.html)

Low and behold, all the drivers (NIC AND array!) loaded into the miniroot!

Hope that helps you.

(build 63. Just saw your post!)

Message was edited by:

Roman_Romano

[natedev]

Cool - thanks! I realized recently that my issue of Express not seeing the drivers was that I needed to rename the sol_210 folder to sol_211. Now I'm just wrestling with my LSISAS3800X. I've got a funky config - that HBA is attached to a Dell PowerVault MD1000 with 15 x 750 GB SATA II drives. Really nice backup system if I can get ESX to see it. I can always fall back to NFS but iSCSI would be nice. Sounds like the iSCSI target in build 63 isn't quite soup yet.

[Roman_Romano]

No worries.

Just be careful of that driver disk from HP. The image it creates on a floppy didn't seem to work for me, i had trouble with opensolaris using it properly (complained about a missing install.sh). Copying the needed stuff from the sol_210 on the HP disk into the sol_211 part of that other ITU disk worked a treat for me.

Aparently build 65 has just been released. Not sure if there are any improvements in the iSCSI target though.

All the best and i hope you get it on your HP hardware!

Regards

Roman

[natedev]

Thanks Roman! Hope you get a run of luck with it, too!

[peobe]

Has anyone tested this with VMotion, i.e. Opensolaris serving multiple ESX hosts as a iSCSI target?? I'm planning to test two ESX hosts and a OpenSolaris iSCSI target as datastorage, has anyone done this before..

[Roman_Romano]

Yes, and it worked a treat, though i was a bit limited by the hardware i had available. i had an old Dell PowerEdge 2550 and a few 36GB disks. Set up a zpool of two of the disks (mirrored) and configured iscsi via zfs settings.

Got two of my ESX boxes to register the iscsi target as a datastore (eg. shared). Built a VM on one server with everything on the iscsi target datastore. Ensured consistent settings across both ESX boxes and vMotioned away! I had an RDP session to the VM and pinging it from another box on the network and never did it drop the RDP session or lose any packets. I was/am most impressed and it was so good a set up that i have now expanded my iscsi target onto better and bigger hardware.

I'm not saying it is the answer to everyone's problems but i wholehearted suggest that everyone roll up their sleeves and give it a go. What have you got to lose?!?

[peobe]

Sounds great, we will try it out a.s.a.p