Virtual Storage Appliance Linux edition

[crond]

Hi

Is there up-to-date information, technical papers or blogs, related to virtual SA Linux edition ?

1) Based on https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwi ... goes-linux, it looks like it should be possible to deploy vSAN for vSphere without deploying windows based VMs, but based on various guides/blogs it appears that at least one Windows VM/host is required to host management console, is that correct ? If this is the case Is there an option to manage virtual SA/Linux with powershell scripts, similar to VSAN Free ?

2) Following
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/s ... ux-edition
and
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/s ... gateway-vm

I have deployed 2 virtual SA VMs on esxi 6.7u2 hosts.

StarWind Managment console installed on a dedicated Windows server 2016 VM with default config. License is applied and I can connect / configure virtual SA
StarWind Web Appliance deployed on the same host/vSwitch but after updating connection settings it still fails to connect due to timeout.
I don't see anything in the log on Managment console side and I was not able to login into shell on Web appliance, what is default user/password for accessing shell ?

starwind config.jpg (66.2 KiB) Viewed 5890 times

[yaroslav (staff)]

Greetings,

Welcome to StarWind forum. Here is the technical paper https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... r-vsphere/ on how to set up Linux-based edition of StarWind VSAN. While installing StarWind Management Console, please install the PowerShell Management Library (there should be an option in StarWind VSAN installation wizard) to be able to manage your Linux environment with PowerShell. Please use the IP of StarWind VSAN VM in scripts instead of 127.0.0.1 to run them.
On Windows box, While installing Management Console, you need to select ONLY StarWind Management Console and PowerShell Management Library.
In Management Console, you should connect to the servers first. Please check the guide I shared with you above.

[crond]

Hi Yaroslav,

Thanks for reply. This technical paper is the one I used to deploy virtual SA, with exception of creating datacenter. For first scenario I don't need HA and it will be a separate storage only deployment so I skipped data center part.
To avoid any doubts, I don't have any issues with deploying virtual SA in VM. It works as expected and I can use Starwind Managment console (running on windows VM) to manage systems.
But I'm having some trouble with getting StarWind Web Appliance to connect to Management console/vSA. I.E Last step of https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... ion-guide/ fails for me. And I also can't find any reference wrt to default root (shell) password for Web Appliance.

Greetings,
Welcome to StarWind forum. Here is the technical paper https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... r-vsphere/ on how to set up Linux-based edition of StarWind VSAN. While installing StarWind Management Console, please install the PowerShell Management Library (there should be an option in StarWind VSAN installation wizard) to be able to manage your Linux environment with PowerShell. Please use the IP of StarWind VSAN VM in scripts instead of 127.0.0.1 to run them.
On Windows box, While installing Management Console, you need to select ONLY StarWind Management Console and PowerShell Management Library.
In Management Console, you should connect to the servers first. Please check the guide I shared with you above.

[yaroslav (staff)]

We are not allowed to disclose the root password for StarWind Gateway VM. Please use the credentials from the guide.

For first scenario I don't need HA and it will be a separate storage only deployment

Are you up for a compute-and-storage-separated setup or just standalone StarWind disks?

Could you please elaborate on what exactly is failing for thin client deployment?

[crond]

With respect to client, the last step (connecting to server) fails with timeout.
I.E I can deploy VM, connect to GUI, change password / server IP address, but afterwards connection fails.

SW-connect error.jpg (49.73 KiB) Viewed 5847 times

With respect to scenarios, on the front-end
* First usecase is latency sensitive (random reads and reads-after-write) workload.
* Second is a classic NAS: SMB Direct / NFS with HA as an option

On the back-end, I'm not sure what to use, that's why I plan to run benchmarks for various type of deployment starting from simplest one I.E standalone StarWind virtual disk.

If you can recommend an easy way to cover HA NAS scenario with virtual SA (Linux), I would really appreciate it.
Also do I understand correctly and the only option to deploy virtual SA based on nvme storage with n+1 or n+2 redundancy would be a LVM and/or software raid.

We are not allowed to disclose the root password for StarWind Gateway VM. Please use the credentials from the guide.

For first scenario I don't need HA and it will be a separate storage only deployment

Are you up for a compute-and-storage-separated setup or just standalone StarWind disks?

Could you please elaborate on what exactly is failing for thin client deployment?

[yaroslav (staff)]

If you can recommend an easy way to cover HA NAS scenario with virtual SA (Linux), I would really appreciate it.

See this guide https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... rver-2016/. Go to the Fileshare for General use section.

Also do I understand correctly and the only option to deploy virtual SA based on nvme storage with n+1 or n+2 redundancy would be a LVM and/or software raid.

As per StarWind VSAN system requirements, software RAIDs but MDADM or Microsoft Storage Spaces is not supported (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/system-requirements). You can also connect disks in the pass-through mode.

Instead of web-based management, you can use a Windows box where Management Console is running.

[crond]

If you can recommend an easy way to cover HA NAS scenario with virtual SA (Linux), I would really appreciate it.

See this guide https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... rver-2016/. Go to the Fileshare for General use section.

Apologies if I was not specific. My question is about Virtual Storage Appliance Linux edition.
Windows based solution works as expected

Also do I understand correctly and the only option to deploy virtual SA based on nvme storage with n+1 or n+2 redundancy would be a LVM and/or software raid.

As per StarWind VSAN system requirements, software RAIDs but MDADM or Microsoft Storage Spaces is not supported (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/system-requirements). You can also connect disks in the pass-through mode.

Instead of web-based management, you can use a Windows box where Management Console is running.

Windows VM with Management Console is what I'm using at the moment.

[yaroslav (staff)]

Hi,

We will build a test setup to investigate this event. WIll keep you posted.

[crond]

Hi
Have you had a chance to check it ?

[yaroslav (staff)]

Hi, sorry, not yet.
May I ask you logging a case with StarWind Support, please? Use this forum thread as a reference, please.

[crond]

It appears I'm not allowed to log a support case using my public email address. I'm getting "Please, enter your corporate email!" error. Would be nice to allow register users to submit new cases.

Either way Case number: 406362

[yaroslav (staff)]

Thanks!

Will work with you there.