Tag: ISCSI

How-to: ESX4.1 using Vmotion with Local Host Only Storage

Can you vMotion using local ESX host storage?

 

Oh man the VCPs out there are screaming “No!!! You can’t vMotion Local Storage!”. Oh to the contrary my friend, with a wee bit of ingenuity you can do many things. Now before I go any further I will state the obvious. As any VCP will tell you, you can’t vMotion the local host storage.  But… but.. You can convert the local storage in to shared storage. This is not supported by VMware so do not expect a lot of tech support but let me lay it out for you.

You have several ESX or ESXi hosts running on “Local” storage and have a license in vCenter for the vMotion abilities, but if you don’t want or can’t afford to buy some big ISCSI SANS unit, you will not be able to use your vMotion. The standard Dell Power Vault cost a few pennies and you just don’t have the doe. Here is what you can do.

Virtualize the Local Storage with a SAN VM

 

That’s right!! Create a single VM that consumse all your local storage and let it present ISCSI LUNS back to your ESX hosts.

 

We will build our first VM on the ESX host as a virtual SANdevice. The reason we do the first VM as we will be using it’s storage to build the rest of our VMs on. Leveraging the power of open source software and using the google archive of information on how to setup and use the Openfiler SANS OS is imperative. You want to look at Open Filer. It is a simple ISO image you can run from CD or just mount using NFS or from your vCenter client. It installs very easily and can be configured in less than 20 minutes.

You would build the first VM with all the storage you have available giving this storage then to the Openfiler system to use for your SANS storage. I will not go in to the install of Openfiler here but if you follow the simple instructions you will have a ISCSI SANS with the total amount of available storage of your host system.

You will now have the first host storage shared out as ISCSI and you will connect all hosts via ISCSI to these new LUNs you created in the SANS. See VMware knowledge base for information on how to do this. (It is simple, just outside the scope of this conceptiul article). Now repeat this on all host in your infrastructure. You now have some number of host all with 1 VM installed as a virtual SAN with ISCSI sharing out LUNs to all the host in your infrastructure.

You will now in vCenter set the priority boot options to make sure that the SAN VM is the first to boot and has time to come up and get going before any other VMs boot and you can now install VMs on any of the ISCSI LUNs presented to the hosts.  Do vMotion, Storage vMotion, HA, DRS and the new FT on any of the VMs.

ESX is  available to download as a 60 day full eval, so give it and vCenter a try for sixty days while trying this platform layout. You can use VMware workstation to virtualize the whole thing, from the ESX Hosts to the vSAN VM and any VMs after that. That is also correct… You can virtualize ESX hosts now and then run VMs on those ESX VMs. Is that not just the bomb! I can create and test different ESX deployments inside a VM group inside of VMware workstation.  Build and test complex layouts with out bringing your production environments in to the picture.

Now that I have your mind turning and thinking of all the posibilities, get out and VM something!

Good luck and enjoy…

Cubert

Error during the configuration of the host: Failed to update disk partition information

VMware ESX 4 -> Failed to update disk partition information.

After creating a new LUN on a Dell MD3000i, I wanted to add the new iSCSI LUN to my ESXi server. Everything went fine, the LUN was presented and the Add storage wizard has found the new LUN. But when i wanted to complete the wizard, the following error came up:

VMware ESX 4 -> Failed to update disk partition information.

After creating a new LUN on a Dell MD3000i, I wanted to add the new iSCSI LUN to my ESXi server. Everything went fine, the LUN was presented and the Add storage wizard has found the new LUN. But when i wanted to complete the wizard, the following error came up:

Now if you go on the Internet a search around you will find several references to this issue. Most if not all of them tell you to:

1. Use fdisk on the /dev/sd[a-z]* device. Create a partition with type 0xfb.
2. Format the VMFS datastore using
vmkfstools -C vmfs3 vmhbaI:T:L:P
In this example, I corresponds to the initiator of the VMware host bus adapter, T corresponds to the target number of the disk, L is the LUN number, and P is the partition number of the newly created partition.

3. Reboot ESX server

This is not always required, It may be just a hickup in your ISCSI registration on the ESX servers. Here is how I fixed mine and it worked with out any reboots or major adjustments.

Steps to take first before following the CLI instructions:

  1. Go create another 5Gb LUN on Power Vault.
  2. Set the access group assigned to new LUN to allow ESX servers
  3. On ESX Host GUI go back to configuration menu and select Storage Adapters menu
  4. Select your ISCSI Software Adapter from Storage Adapter list and select “Rescan” (even if you see your LUN)
  5. Go back to the Storage menu and select add storage, select Disk/LUN and follow through the menus to mount and format the 5gb LUN and it should go through now.
  6. Remove the 5gb LUN from the ESX Storage menu.
  7. Remove the 5gb LUN from Dell Vault.
  8. Go back to your ESX and rescan HBAs and make sure the 5gb LUN is gone and you see your original LUN you want to mount.
  9. Go back to the Storage menu and select add storage, select Disk/LUN and follow through the menus to mount and format the  LUN and it should go through now.

If this does not work then change the access to the LUN on the vault to a new access group. Rescan for LUN on ESX then go reset the LUN back to the original access group you want to use and then rescan again from ESX.  Try to remount LUN and format. This should now connect and no errors should appear. If you still are getting errors then you may have other issues and you can now try the CLI method or call in support.

Good Luck, I hope  this helps a few of you out there from dealing with production systems and not wanting to spend all day VMotioning, reboots and such.

Enjoy