Network Interfaces

mlmill · Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:37 pm

I am setting up a two node environment consisting the following: Windows Server 2008 R2 RC running Hyper-V, Microsoft Clustering Software, Starwind server. From my research, I will need 5 network adapters for the Hyper-V servers; One for Hyper-V Host, one for VMs, one for cluster communications (and CSV), one for iSCSI communication (or more if I use MPIO), one for Live Migration. From my reading on the Starwind server, it appears that the Starwind software will use all available NICs for iSCSI traffic... is this correct? Is it possible to have one NIC reserved for management of the server (to access from the public network)? If not, then the Starwind server is isolated on the iSCSI network and the only way to administer it is to physically be in front of the server as RDP connections would not be possible. Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

Update: Ok, I see where I can configure the Starwind Service Connection settings and specify the NIC I want Starwind to listen for iSCSI traffic, but, what if I want to have multiple NICs listening for iSCSI (for MPIO) and still have one NIC available for management?

Robert (staff) · Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:57 pm

You can manually edit the configuration file in order to "bind" StarWind to separate network interfaces. The configuration file is located at C:\Program Files\StarWind Software\StarWind\starwind.cfg

The configuration file has plenty of comments, so it should not be difficult, i.e.

<connections>








<connection value="192.168.32.1:3260"/>
<connection value="192.168.1.234:3260"/>
</connections>

This will let StarWind "listen" to the specific IP addresses only.

Just uncomment the needed connection values and ip addresses and add additional if needed, save the file and restart starwind service in task management.

Also, it is possible to set Permissions for the specific Connection or a device. Just right click on the target or a connection and select “Permissions”.

mlmill · Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:23 pm

Thank you for your response! Is the below entries under <CtlInterface value...> a typo? Do I really use port value 3260 for both the entries? The default for iSCSI connections is 3260 and the Control is 3261, do I use 3260 for both?

<connections>








<connection value="192.168.32.1:3260"/>
<connection value="192.168.1.234:3260"/>
</connections>

Robert (staff) · Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:38 pm

That's right. You would need to specify port 3261 in case you would receive control connection from another StarWind PC and would allow this remote StarWind PC to manage the PC with this configuration file on it (i.e. a remote StarWind PC with mirroring to your local).

Thanks