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DigitalEssence
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How do I make iscsi disk visible to a guest OS?

Hi,

I have (AFAIK) iSCSI working between our Poweredge 1850 and our AX150i

I have two vswitches set up, each using a different NIC and on different networks. I can see my LUNS and everything looks ok.

In Storage, I have created two storage devices and I am now looking to have this visible to my guest OS as a local drive so I can use them. This is the part I am stumped on as I can't see any way of doing this.

If I remember correctly, on our physical hosts, as soon as I assigned virtual disks to the servers they became visible to the OS and off I went.

I have attached screenshots of my main screens.

Also, is this the correct command to backup my servers config (I'm running on windows):

vicfg-cfgbackup.pl --server <ServerIP> -s <filename>

thanks (again).

Hedley

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Leafy911
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Hi there

I think you are trying to create a virtual hard disk as opposed to a raw disk mapping (RDM).

If this is the case then what you need to do is edit the VM's settings by right clicking on the VM where your guest OS that needs to access the new disk is.

Add a new device, select a Hard disk, choose create a new virtual disk, select the size you want and the datastore you want it to reside on. The rest you can leave as default, check the summary reflects what you want and then press Finish.

Regards

Leafy911

(Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)

Regards Leafy911 (Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)

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AntonVZhbankov
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Delete both datastores and then add RDM disks to VM.


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Leafy911
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Hi there

I think you are trying to create a virtual hard disk as opposed to a raw disk mapping (RDM).

If this is the case then what you need to do is edit the VM's settings by right clicking on the VM where your guest OS that needs to access the new disk is.

Add a new device, select a Hard disk, choose create a new virtual disk, select the size you want and the datastore you want it to reside on. The rest you can leave as default, check the summary reflects what you want and then press Finish.

Regards

Leafy911

(Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)

Regards Leafy911 (Dont forget you recieve points when you award points)
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JeffDrury
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You can use RDM to make the iSCSI lun's appear to your VM or you could simply install an iSCSI initiator in the VM, add a vNIC on your iSCSI network and connect to the LUN's. Either method will allow you to format the LUN with your desired filesystem instead of VMFS. I usually prefer the iSCSI initiator in the VM as it is a quick and easy deployment.

weinstein5
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It looks like evertthing is set up ok - Are you looking for natove access form the guest to the iSCSI LUN or wanting to add a virtual disk

  • To add a virtual disk you will need to edit the setings of the virtual machine and add disk - you will be given and option to store the virtual disk on one of the two VMFS datastores you created on your LUNs

  • To provide access natively you can do one of two by insalling a software iSCSI client into the guest O/S or as an Raw Devce Mapping from insode ESX -

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DigitalEssence
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Gosh, I think I have some reading to do as when I looked at what an RDM is my brain hurt.

Let me have a good read on the subject and get back to you guys.

thanks,

Hedley

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DigitalEssence
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I would like to continue this thread (and assign points) please and have some further questions if you don't mind.

At present I have

Appserv1 which uses iSCSI to connect to appserv1_data virtual disk

Appserv2 which uses iSCSI to connect to appserv2_data virtual disk

esx1(Host) which is connected to ESX_virtual_01 and esx_virtual_02 (01 is for data and 02 is the vmdk store)

With the existing setup only one server can connect to one virtual disk. Is it possible to have multiple virtual servers connecting to a SAN virtual disk? Or is this where the RDM comes in?

I had a read of RDM and just ended up more confused than when I started.

thanks,

Hedley Phillips

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