ESXi 5.5U2 Can't connect to Target

zzsmirkzz · Fri Jan 23, 2015 5:28 pm

Hi,

I am running Starwind v8 Free (for performance evaluation purposes) on a single Server 2008 R2 server. I create a target, connect a Virtual Disk - Thick, 5TB (tried 2TB as well), 512MB cache. On the VMWare side, it can do discovery on the server and see the device and all paths. It, however, cannot login to the target. I have turned off CHAP authentication and left the default access rule (allow all) as-is. In the vCenter event log I see a "Login to iSCSI target "iqn...." on vmhba38 @ vmk2 failed. The iSCSI initiator could not establish a network connection to the target".

I am pretty sure I have the VMWare Netowrking and VMKernal ports setup and assigned correctly as I was using this same setup to test the MS iSCSI Target - Both the eSXI host and Server 2008 R2 iSCSI server as the same. The MS iSCSI setup was working fine. I only uninstalled MS iSCSI target and installed Starwind on the Server, to compare the two target software performances with everything else the same. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Rich

Sat Jan 24, 2015 10:12 am

Hi!
What is the type of free license you use?
Could you please provide us with an iSCSI network diagram?
Also, please make sure Microsoft iSCSI target service is disabled and not blocking port 3260, even though you uninstalled it.

BTW: if you see the device and paths that usually means you're already connected. What is the device name and vendor?
Can you see the same device when going to Storage->Add datastore ?

zzsmirkzz · Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:42 pm

Free License information - Attached Screenshot

: License Info; LicenseInfo.PNG (51.44 KiB) Viewed 5471 times

iSCSI vSwitch Diagram - Attached Screenshot.
This is a dedicated network with one switch. Two ports from each host, each in its own subnet, dedicated to iSCSI traffic. Mirrored setup on the NAS.

: vSwitch Diagram; vSwitch-iSCSI.PNG (14.53 KiB) Viewed 5471 times

iSCSI Target is uninstalled and not listed in Services. Ran netstat to confirm StarWindService has Port 3260 bindings on iSCSI interfaces.

Storage Devices - Attached Screenshot.

: Storage Devices; StorageDevices.PNG (13.87 KiB) Viewed 5471 times

VMWare can see the device, but any further than that and the client seems to timeout. It lists a login error in the Events section almost immediately after a HBA Rescan. If you try to select the datastore, the web client hangs for a long time before the device grays-out and becomes disconnected. I will attach the Events Screenshots to the next post.

zzsmirkzz · Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:43 pm

Events Screenshots

List:

: Event List; Events-1.PNG (10.34 KiB) Viewed 5471 times

Detail:

: Event Detail; Events-2.PNG (11.84 KiB) Viewed 5471 times

Fri Jan 30, 2015 12:28 pm

Can I ask you to upload the StarWind logs that covers the time of the problem somewhere and share the link with us please?

zzsmirkzz · Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:34 pm

Anatoly (staff) wrote:Can I ask you to upload the StarWind logs that covers the time of the problem somewhere and share the link with us please?

After many attempts, retries and reboots, I finally got this working reliably. I'm not sure what I changed that made a difference but the only major setting change I recall was changing the sector size from 4k to 512e.

Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:34 pm

Yup, that was it.
We love-self-supporting users!:)
Thank you for the update!