3:29 PM Santosh
Today I got chance to test FreeNAS with my VMware vSphere 5 test lab. In my last article I have showed How to configure FreeNAS NFS share for VMware vSphere 5 I have tried the same version of FreeNAS i.e. "FreeNAS-8.0.1-RC1-amd64 (7508)" which I used for my FreeNAS NFS share configuration for iSCSI but no luck. So I have downloaded & installed new build i.e. "FreeNAS-8r7622-amd64.iso" from https://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/FreeNAS-8-nightly/ & it workd like charm.
So I will suggest you guys to wait for final build to release, but for testing you can go with "FreeNAS-8r7622-amd64.iso". So lets get started with FreeNAS iSCSI configuration. FreeNAS iSCSI configuration is little bit different from OpenFiler. I am using a Virtual guest machine as my FreeNAS box & I have added 10GB of second disk which I am going to use as my iSCSI storage for my VMware vSphere server 5. Please check [Guide] Installing FreeNAS 8 on VMware vSphere 5 (ESXi 5) How to Install FreeNAS 8 on VMware vSphere 5 (ESXi 5) guide before proceed.
Open your FreeNAS URL in Web-browser e.g. http://FreeNAS-IP-Address
Navigate to Services->ISCSI->Portals as shown below. Click on "Add Portal" tab & add your portal & keep reset as default.
Navigate to Services->ISCSI->Initiators as shown below. Click on "Add Initiator", keep all defaults & click on OK.
Navigate to Services->ISCSI->Targets as shown below. Click on "Add Target", Enter Target Name, select Portal group ID, Initiator group ID.
Navigate to Services->ISCSI->Device Extents as shown below. Click on "Add Device Extents", Assign Extent Name & select Disk Device as shown below.
Navigate to Services->ISCSI->Targets/Extents as shown below. Click on "Add Targets/Extents", Select your Target & Extent & click on OK.
Go to FreeNAS services Tab & turn ON iSCSI service.
Now our FreeNAS iSCSI configuration is done, Now lets configure our vSphere 5. Login to vSphere 5 server via VI Client. Navigate to Configurations->Storage->Add Storage.
Enable iSCSI software initiator.
Click on Network Configuration tab & click on Add. Now select the VMKernel port which we created in earlier step & click on OK.
GO to Dynamic Discovery tab & Mention your "FreeNAS" server IP address & click on OK.
When prompted click on YES.
As shown below you can see the FreeNAS iSCSI disk.
Now its time to add storage. Navigate to Configuration->Storage->Add Storage,
Select option "Disk/LUN"
Select FreeNAS iSCSI Path & click next,
Select file system version, in my case its VMFS5 for vSphere 5.
Click Next.
Assign name to your Datastore,
Click on Next.
Click on Next
Click on finish.
