ESXi 4.0, OpenFiler NAS/SAN, iSCSI Target on RAID 5

Software: ESXi 4.0
Hardware: Adaptec 2940
         driver: aic7xxx (download from the web)
         steps:  hwinfo -p to find the storage mapping
                 lspci to help you as well ..
                 vi /etc/vmware/simple.map
                 9004:8178 0000:0000 storage aic7xxx.o
SCSI flexipack
SCSI drives: 1 Fujitsu, 3x SEAGATE all 9GBs

Software: OpenFiler 2.x, CentOS iscsi initiator


First thing that I needed to do to have ESXi recognize and
use the disks was to use gparted to remove the existing
partition table. There where Sun Solaris paritions on them.
fdisk didn't do the trick. See previous gparted solution

ESXi
vSphere 4.0 client
 Configuration
  Rescan on the Storage Adapter
   Disks should show up
   

Console on ESXi

password : unsupported (in the dark)

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba2:C0:T8:L0: 9056 MB, 9056904704 bytes

Make a raw direct mapping to this device. (automatic not possible on
these disk drives)

Check out the vml link to this /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba2:C0:T8:L0 disk

ls -ld /vmfs/devices/disks/vml* | grep T8

This file : /vmfs/devices/disks/vml.01000000004c5338353639363530303030573032323036344c535433393130
This vml file will remain the same when rebooting the machine and the disks is
on a different slot.

vmkfstools -r /vmfs/devices/disks/vml.01000000004c5338353639363530303030573032323036344c535433393130
/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/rawdisk_t8.vmdk

No partition, just the standard L0 target ...
vmkfstools -r /vmfs/devices/disks/vml.01000000003032343335353733202020204d4147333039 /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/rawdisk_t10.vmdk



This will create a raw disk mapping file that we can attach to the VM running
in OpenFiler.
[See for steps OpenFiler : OpenFiler iSCSI target]









iSCSI initiator

Next we use a CENTOS (5.4) Virtual Machine to get the iSCSI target bound to an
iscsi initiator. This virtual machine will use the storage.

yum install iscsi-initiator-utils
/etc/init.d/iscsi start
iscsiadm -m discovery -t sendtargets -p 192.168.2.7 --login
/etc/init.d/iscsi restart
Rescan device
echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan



If you want to remove the target later on:

iscsiadm -m node -T iqn.2002... -o delete

fdisk -l

fdisk /dev/sdb
Create a linux partition

mke2fs /dev/sdb1

mkdir /mnt/storage
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/storage

Make sure after reboot the mount point returns:
chkconfig iscsi on

vi /etc/fstab
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/storate ext3 0 0


Resources:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/rhel-centos-fedora-linux-iscsi-howto.html
http://www.openfiler.com
http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1763