Using the Free iSCSI Solution for VMFS-3 Storage

Now that you have your free iSCSI solution implemented, it’s time to configure your VMware VI3 host to use the freshly presented volume. I’ll continue from where the previous article left off with LUN 1, a raw 50GB LUN being presented from the virtual appliance.

The first step is to enable the Software iSCSI Initiator:

From Virtual Center…

• Host —> Configuration Tab —> Storage Adapters —> vmhba40 a/k/a the iSCSI Software Adapter
• Properties —> Configure —> Check ENABLED.
• Close out the window and let Virtual Center update the configuration.

• Go back into Properties —> Dynamic Discovery —> Add —> Enter the IP address of your appliance.

Now it’s time to rescan. You can do this from the GUI, but I think Virtual Center handles the rescans very poorly. I choose to run it from command line:

• esxcfg-rescan vmhba40

[root@langone001esx Fedora5]# esxcfg-rescan vmhba40
Doing iSCSI discovery. This can take a few seconds …
Rescanning vmhba40…done.
On scsi5, removing: 0:0 1:1.
On scsi5, adding: 0:0 1:1.

LUN 0 is the LUN that came with the appliance. LUN 1 is the 50GB LUN we’re going to use.

Now it’s time to format LUN 1.

• Host —> Configuration Tab —> Storage —> Add Storage.
• Disk/LUN.
• Select vmhba40:...:1.

• Finish the process.

You now have a VMFS-3 volume being presented via iSCSI from a Virtual Appliance using any type of acceptable storage for free.

- Jason

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