iSCSI using bridged connection

[sjesse]

Has anyone ever tried do an iscsi connection using the bridged connection from a natted connection from another workstation. I have multiple workstation licenses so instead of buying server hardware I use workstation on on PC. I recently bought another laptop and another pc and I'l like to keep a storage vm on one, right now I need to have three because I can't get esxi to connect to the other outside of the workstation install.

[NathanosBlightc]

iSCSI can be transfer by iSCSI initiator service (software adapter works inside windows) after enable and configure it, of course there is no different between two physical system or two virtual machine. But remember after establishing your TCP/IP network between two systems, you must setup iSCSI initiator and iSCSI target based on IQN/IP address/DNS name/MAC Address ... (IQN is the better option). But still i can't understand what is your problem exactly? Can you explain more detail about your problem?

[sjesse]

Like I mentioned before, I have 3 pcs with workstation on it, and on one I have a freenas machine, two esxi hosts installed. What I tried was placing a target on my physical local network using the bridged network, and any vmkernal adapters also on the local networking using the a portgroup that was connected via bridged adapters. This was an attempt to put the storage in the same subnet, but when I tried to connect to the freenas box from an esxi host not in the same host pc, the esxi host panics. If I pull the interfaces into a host only network the local nested esxi hosts work fine. Its something to do with the bridged connection that the nested that either the target or the initatiors don't like being on the bridged connections.

[NathanosBlightc]

As I understand from your description both of your ESXi and also freenas are VM that are installed inside VMware workstation, is it correct?

So as a checklist to do:

1.configure the ESXi host Software iSCSI Adapter

2. Map them to the appropriate VMkernel interface

3. Set the IP interface of freenas to discover by each of ESXi.

Can you check that all of them are configured correctly?

I think it's not about bridge vmnet because you said you have network connectivity without any problem. But maybe there is a mismatch in IQN setup ( can you check them with IP or DNS only?) and also maybe there is firewall blocking rule between them all. Can you check them all again ?

Can you also try it with Microsoft iSCSI Target role that is configured in a windows server?

[sjesse]

The only time it doesn't work is with the bridged connections, It works just fine locally and I have firewalls off everywhere. I just swap the workstation connection from bridged to a custom one behind a vm router and it works.