storage issue NetApp/iscsi/ESX3.5

[Jesse1973]

I get a timeout on iSCSI on different ESXs on different times. It is puzzling, as both the ESX hosts as windows and other guests are experiencing timeouts.

all networks are divided, NFS runs over a different network than iSCSI, which is on a dedicated lan.

an excerpt of vmkiscsid.log of last night:

2010-02-10-12:30:38: iscsid: an InitiatorAlias= is required, but was not found in /etc/vmware/vmkiscsid/initiatorname.iscsi

2010-02-10-12:30:38: iscsid: LogLevel = 0

2010-02-10-12:30:38: iscsid: LogSync = 0

2010-02-10-12:30:42: iscsid: Login Success: iqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.101197719,default,192.168.73.2,3260,2001, 0x1

2010-02-10-12:30:42: iscsid: connection1:0 is operational now

2010-02-16-02:03:35: iscsid: Kernel reported iSCSI connection 1:0 error (1008) state (3)

2010-02-16-02:03:39: iscsid: connection1:0 is operational after recovery (2 attempts)

2010-02-16-04:02:27: iscsid: Kernel reported iSCSI connection 1:0 error (1008) state (3)

2010-02-16-04:02:32: iscsid: connection1:0 is operational after recovery (2 attempts)

should i edit the timeout value on the esxhost for iscsi? This may work around the problem but will not solve it.

Anyone?

[marcelo_soares]

Take a look at the /var/log/vmkernel at the same time this error happened.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Technical Support Engineer

Globant Argentina

[Jesse1973]

i did, cat /var/log/vmkernel grep|vmhba1

output is the same, sadly

requested a vmkernel output from the client, awaiting response

[AnatolyVilchins]

Could you tell me what is your SAN vendor?

iSCSI Software Support Department

[Jesse1973]

Hi Anatoly

Its NetApp.

[DaemonLord]

Hi all,

Do you use snapmirror?

I have the same scsi timeout errors on a FAS2020 with snapmirror enabled.

I'm still trying to figure out what the problem could be..

grtz

Andy

[Igor_The_Great]

Question: How to configure ESX for optimal availability with NFS Datastores?

Answer: If you keep loosing NFS shares, NetApp recommends making the following changes on each ESX host:

1. Using VI/vSpere Client connect to ESX host. 
2. Select the Configuration tab.
3. In the Software box, select Advanced Configuration.
4. In the pop-up window, left pane, select NFS.
5. Change the value of NFS.HeartbeatFrequency to 12.
6. Change the value of NFS.HeartbeatMaxFailures to 10.

[Igor_The_Great]

Also, please make sure that your NFS and iSCSI traffic is going over 1 or 10GbE nic/hba.

[bulletprooffool]

There is a best pratcice guide available for this.

I have pretty much followed this each time I set up NFS storage and had no problems:

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2009/07/vsphere-on-netapp-best-practices-released.html

The are several little settings to make (like thos menioned above for heapsize etc)

Good luck