ISCSI Connection Error

[peterdcross]

I have built a test domain in workstation, the standard two esx4.1 servers and DC and VCenter Server, it all works fine. I have installed Openfiler on a separate host running ESXi 4.1, that works fine as well (See Techhead.co.uk and others for the methodolgy) My problem is the iscsi discovery. The target is discovered and is correctly listed in the Properties/Static Discovery of the iscsi initiator of the esx4.1's but after a rescan no path is configured. The same error occurs on both servers.

Operation failed, diagnostics report: iScsiLibException: status(c0000000): Invalid parameter; Message= IMA_AddStaticDiscoveryTarget

The discover completes successfully so something after that event is stopping the LUN connection on the filer.

Any ideas welcome

[Igor_The_Great]

Check your firewall to make sure it is allowing traffic to flow properly and what equipment do you have between your esx host and openfiler?

How fast is it? iSCSI requires a minimum of 1GbE connection - anything smaller than that will not work.

-Igor

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points.

[peterdcross]

Igor gave me something to think about, the 1gb connection requirement for a Networkcard.

As the build was in a virtualised environment the esx servers were presented with a 1gb connection by default, therefore I believed that they could not beaware of the underlying connection speed as no connection to the LUN had been made and the actual physical connection being made could not be determined. To proove this I created an Openfiler Server on the physical esxi (this would connect at bus speed.) it worked OK. A rebuild of the original LUNs connections corrected the problem what ever it was, but the benefit we all get from this is a 1Gb is not equired to create the shared storage.

[peterdcross]

Running test beds in work station throughs up unexpected results sometimes, but a 1Gb connection is not required to getr shared storage to work. QED

[Igor_The_Great]

Sure, agree - it all depends on your performance requirements - if you want it to work properly and fast dedicate at least a 1GbE pipe for iSCSI/NFS.