[GRLUG] booting from iscsi target

Wed Dec 28 22:16:35 EST 2011

It's intended to be Windows 7 booting from a Windows server, likely 2008 
but possibly 2003. I have had some success getting the Windows 7 
initiator to connect to my Ubuntu 11.10 host, but I think I missed the 
command to actually create the LUN. That's closer than I got in Windows 
2008 though, as all the options for creating targets and LUNs are greyed 
out for some reason. I'll try modifying the commands you listed there 
and see if I can make anything work that way.

On 12/27/2011 10:24 PM, scott.tanner at comcast.net wrote:
> Can you give us some details on your setup - like which target 
> software you're using, backing store, if you're using authentication....
>
> Just for reference, here are the commands I used for sharing an LVM 
> volume on host fsx to a client (CentOS to CentOS)
>
> On fsx:
>  /etc/init.d/tgtd start
>  tgtadm --lld iscsi --op new --mode target --tid 4 -T 
> iqn.201212.net.testing:fsx.lv.iscsi.client               # Create target 4
>  tgtadm --lld iscsi --op bind --mode target --tid 4 -I ALL 
>                                                                              
> # Open to all IPs
>  tgtadm --lld iscsi --op new --mode logicalunit --tid 4 --lun 1 
> --backing-store /dev/mapper/vg01-iscsi  # Assign LV
>  tgtadm --lld iscsi --op show --mode target
>
> On client:
> /etc/init.d/iscsid
> iscsiadm --mode discovery --type sendtargets --portal fsx
> iscsiadm --mode node --target $target_name  --portal fsx --login
> iscsiadm --mode node
>
> Regards,
> Scott
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From: *"Mike Williams" <knightperson at zuzax.com>
> *To: *"Mailing List for LUG in greater Grand Rapids, MI area." 
> <grlug at grlug.org>
> *Sent: *Tuesday, December 27, 2011 6:17:08 PM
> *Subject: *Re: [GRLUG] booting from iscsi target
>
> It's supposed to be possible with PXE, but I haven't gotten that far. So
> far, I can't even get an iSCSI initiator to connect to and mount an
> iscsi target even when there are fully functional operating systems
> involved. I intend to keep playing with it because it's neat stuff.
>
> On 12/27/2011 07:54 AM, Kevin McCarthy wrote:
> > I'm the one who was talking about booting Windows over iSCSI. Sorry
> > for the delayed response, I haven't been checking the mailing list as
> > much as I probably should for the last couple of weeks.
> >
> > Anyway, the only way I've made this work is to use an iSCSI option ROM
> > for an Intel gigabit NIC. All you need to do is set the iSCSI target
> > (including LUN) in the NIC's setup screen (Ctrl-A at boot, I think)
> > and then through the magic of iBFT the Windows installer will present
> > the iSCSI target in the list of installable drives and happily install
> > directly to it. Then, you select the NIC as the primary boot device in
> > the system BIOS and it boots just fine with no local disks.
> >
> > I'm not sure it is possible to do this without at least iBFT support
> > on the NIC, so you will need some dedicated hardware. But, Intel NICs
> > are ~$20 and you can download the iSCSI ROM for them here:
> >
> > http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx
> >
> > It's trivial to make a FreeDOS boot USB drive, and run BootUtil from
> > there to update the ROM on the NIC. At least it went smoothly for me.
> >
> > You can also check into iPXE if you don't have an Intel card (or even
> > if you do) but I had better luck with the official Intel ROM on my card.
> >
> > Good luck with this.
> >
> > -Kevin
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 3:54 PM, Mike Williams <knightperson at zuzax.com
> > <mailto:knightperson at zuzax.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     I've played around with it, but haven't gotten anything working.
> >     The iscsi initiator (Windows 7) will recognize and connect to an
> >     iscsi target (sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes Windows 2008), but I
> >     can't seem to actually attach to a LUN. I'm not interested in
> >     performance or dedicated hardware at this point; I just want to
> >     establish that you can run a diskless workstation over iscsi.
> >
> >
> >     On 12/23/2011 10:19 AM, scott.tanner at comcast.net
> > <mailto:scott.tanner at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> >         Hey Mike,
> >         Did you ever get the information you were looking for on this?
> >
> >         I have a little experience with an iscsi arrays, and lab'd up
> >         a test environment using the Linux Target framework (tgt) on
> >         one (beefy) server and the iscsi-initiator software on a few
> >         clients.  My setup was a little different as it's CentOS/Xen
> >         based, but most of the design principles would be the same.
> >
> >         Added warning - not all ISCSI systems are created equal!
> >          Sadly my test environment GREATLY outperformed the Infortrend
> >         ISCSI array we purchased, averaging around %40 better
> >         performance for read/write block I/O (bonnie++).  After a
> >         growth spurt in our QA department which doubled the VM count,
> >         the ISCSI system was demoted to bulk storage and a new
> >         SAS-based SAN was just purchased.  I've been told by some
> >         storage specialists that many providers tweak the ISCSI
> >         controllers for better throughput, apparently Infortrend 
> does not.
> >
> >
> >         Regards,
> >         Scott
> >
> >         
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >         *From: *"Mike Williams" <knightperson at zuzax.com
> > <mailto:knightperson at zuzax.com>>
> >         *To: *"Grand Rapids Linux Users Group" <grlug at grlug.org
> > <mailto:grlug at grlug.org>>
> >         *Sent: *Tuesday, December 20, 2011 2:48:02 AM
> >         *Subject: *[GRLUG] booting from iscsi target
> >
> >
> >         I remember somebody on the list or at The Warehouse was doing
> >         this.
> >         Whoever you are, can I pick your brain on duplicating that
> >         feat? I'm
> >         want to get a Virtualbox Windows 7 guest to boot, first from
> >         the host
> >         Ubuntu 11.10 but eventually from a guest Windows 2008, to
> >         prove to my
> >         employer that Windows 7 will run happily disklessly.
> >
> >         I'm trying to learn about five new things at once here, and my
> >         brain is
> >         overflowing!
> >
> >         Thanks.
> >
>
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