The culprit wasn't network port binding - it seems to have something to do with ESXis holding on to stale paths and items in Dynamic and Static Discovery. Here are some tests I did: Enable (delibe...
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The culprit wasn't network port binding - it seems to have something to do with ESXis holding on to stale paths and items in Dynamic and Static Discovery. Here are some tests I did: Enable (deliberately misconfigured) Network Port Binding (on unrelated vmks not connected to the iSCSI targets in question, and on vmks not in the same local subnet - i.e. a deliberate misconfiguration to see if this would cause issues with an iSCSI target and datastore attached to a different vmk) The datastore on the iSCSI target in question is still accessible and browsable Rescanned the adapter - no change Rebooted the ESXi host - no change Disconnected the datastore in question by removing items in static and dynamic discovery and rescanning the adapter The datastore in question is no longer accessible Added needed items to the Dynamic Discovery, rescanned the adapter The device and the datastore showed up (I think this demonstrates that misconfigured Network Port Binding had no effect on this issue.) CHAP misconfiguration resulting in losing access to the datastore, restored only by removing and re-adding the datastore - by removing relevant items in Dynamic and Static Discovery, rescanning, and then re-adding them. Configured CHAP (incoming) authentication on the target (no changes on the ESXi hosts - not yet) The datastore became inaccessible Tried to configure one of the ESXi hosts to use CHAP authentication. No luck - likely something I was doing wrong. Or, possibly, it's the same "stale info" issue and I needed to remove and re-add the target before the ESXis could access the datastore with CHAP configured. Cleared CHAP configs on both sides, restarted iSCSI service on the target, rescanned the adapter - no change. Rebooted the target, rebooted the ESXi host, verified iSCSI configuration, rescanned several times - no change. Datastore still inaccessible. Removed the relevant items in the Dynamic and Static Discovery, rescanned the adapter - thus effectively removing the datastore. Re-added them on one (not all) of the ESXi hosts. The datastore magically showed up. Surprisingly, it also showed up and became accessible on all other ESXi hosts - without any changes there - without even rescanning or refreshing anything. (Weird, isn't it?) I think this was the original issue I experienced. The datastore was available and could be connected all along, I just needed to not just rescan the adapter, but perform the above steps of effectively removing the iSCSI target, re-scanning, re-adding it, and hoping the device and the datastore would show up. To sum up, if an iSCSI datastore disappeared on an ESXi host and isn't showing up no matter how many times you reboot or rescan, try this: Remove the target and the datastore by: removing relevant items in Static and Dynamic Discovery tabs in "iSCSI Software Adapter" configuration on an ESXi host re-scanning the adapter and confirm the relevant device(s) and the datastore are gone Re-add the target by re-adding the relevant items back to Static and Dynamic Discovery, and re-scanning the adapter. This worked for me and I hope this works for someone else in a similar situation.
