No storage available after boot to SAN

[JamesAspall]

Hi All,

Not sure if I have posted in the right category, as it spans several;

I am trying to complete the setup of a new ESXi 7.o U3 host, using boot from SAN, removing the requirement for local storage.

This is on an HPE DL380 G8 server and HPE MSA 2062 SAN.

I have configured the BIOS settings on the host to use network boot from our two 10Gb interfaces, using iSCSI boot attempts referencing the SAN.

I can complete the install from the ESXi installation media, and can then boot from that install successfully.

The issue however, is once ESXi boots, there appears to be no iSCSI session handoff, and the boot volume is not visible in ESXi. This means when I make any config changes, they are all lost as ESXi cannot access the boot volume to store the changes.

Rebooting the host takes me back to a fresh install again.

Can anyone offer any advice on how to get the handoff working so ESXi can access the boot volume as expected?

Thanks

James

[alantz]

I don't use HP, but is your iscsi boot initiators the same or different than the ESXi iscsi initiators ?

--Alan--

[JamesAspall]

The physical NICs are the same.

ESXi on boot doesn't have software iSCSI enabled, which I was expecting to be enabled by default when booting via iSCSI. The initiator names would be different as the HP BIOS has a default initiator name configured in the BIOS which obviously won't match what ESXi uses.

ESXi has created an iSCSI boot port group and vSwitch connected to one of the physical NICs used for iSCSI boot.

Cheers

James

[alantz]

Yes, mine did too, created a port group/vswitch which I melded into my distributed switches. I can't remember if my IQN come over as well or if I manually set it, but right now my ESXi software iscsi initiator is the same as my iscsi boot initiator.

--Alan--

[JamesAspall]

Thanks.

Is your suggestion therefore to enable software iSCSI in ESXi, and change the initiator names to match, or should it not matter?

[alantz]

It would be either make both the same, or make sure both initiators have access to the iSCSI boot LUN on your SAN.

--Alan--

[JamesAspall]

Thanks,

So even if I don't make the initiator names the same, if I just enable software iSCSI in ESXi and map it to the same volume on the SAN, it should hand off from the BIOS and take control of it as the ESXi volume?

If that's the case, I'm surprised that ESXi doesn't enable software iSCSI automatically?

Cheers

James

[alantz]

That is the way I understand it and what I am doing.  I don't think its a handoff per se, but I haven't looked into whether those iscsi connections from the boot just become stale or disconnect or exactly what happens to them.  Then when ESXi boots it connects you can have it mount the same LUN if needed. I'm curious what others think on this.

--Alan--

[JamesAspall · Accepted solution]

After having rebooted a few times, the ESXi initiator name seems to have automatically changed to match what was set in the BIOS, very weird.

I have now configured my iSCSI port groups, vSwitch and NICs withing ESXi, and configured port binding in the initiator. ESXi seems to be reliably booting and allowing me to commit config changes to storage, so I think we're off to the races!

Cheers

James