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What is Openfiler?
I won't claim to have reviewed every open source iSCSI option available, because once I found
Openfiler, and it worked well, I stopped looking. Openfiler is an open source SAN and network-
attached storage (NAS). Not only does it offer options to share files using iSCSI, but also FTP,
NFS, HTTP, SMB and more. You can also download the 332 MB ISO installation file or even
pre-built VMware images.
Once installed and running, you can create disk volumes, apply security and share your data
across a NAS or SAN -- whichever you choose.
I have taken dedicated servers and used Openfiler at companies where it served as an iSCSI SAN
to our VMware Infrastructure servers. Later, we moved our production VMware server storage
to a more expensive dedicated appliance, but we kept all test servers, virtual desktops and
development servers on the Openfiler SAN.
In my home test network, I have run Openfiler on dedicated machines and inside VMware
Workstation and ESX Server. Again, I can take ESX Server, point it toward the iSCSI SAN,
format it with Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) and use it to test features like VMotion,
VMHA and DRS.
Now I run Openfiler inside Microsoft Hyper-V and, ironically, still point my VMware ESX
servers to it for storage of VMFS guest systems, and use it for VMotion, VMHA and DRS.
To install Openfiler inside Hyper-V, download the 64-bit ISO image, as Hyper-V requires a 64-
bit CPU.
Next, start the Hyper-V MMC and choose to create a new a new virtual machine, like this:
When asked about adding a network interface, there is no need to add the typical integrated
network interface as the Linux virtual machine (VM) won't recognize it anyway. For now, say
"not connected" and we will add the legacy network adapter soon.
Figure 4: Configuring networking
Add a new virtual IDE disk that will be used by the virtual machine as the Openfiler OS disk.
This won't, however, be our shared iSCSI disk where we will put the shared VMFS (we will
create that disk later).
Figure 5: Creating a new virtual disk
Now, map the virtual DVD drive to the ISO image that you downloaded.
Figure 6: Mapping the virtual DVD drive
Now you want to edit your configuration for the new virtual machine, so click on Settings.
Figure 8: Change settings for the new Openfiler virtual machine
Let's start with the legacy network adapter. Perhaps there is a way to get the Hyper-V
integrations installed in the Openfiler Linux OS, but I haven't figured that out yet. The easiest
way to get a working network interface card (NIC) is to install the legacy network adapter. So
click on Add Hardware then Legacy Network Adapter.
Next, you need to add a new integrated development environment (IDE) disk onto the existing
IDE controller.
You will have to click New and go through the new hard disk wizard. I recommend placing the
new virtual hard disk in the same place as the other virtual disk for this VM. You can create a
new fixed or dynamic virtual hard disk of whatever size you would like to make your iSCSI
shared volume. When you are done, your configuration should look something like this:
Figure 12: Results of new virtual hard disk created
From here, go through the typical Openfiler installation. For the most part, I recommend you
take all the default settings. It is very likely that you will want to use a static IP address on the
Openfiler server.
Once installed and rebooted, you will need to configure Openfiler to share the second IDE
volume we created using iSCSI. I wrote an article, "Use Openfiler as your free VMware ESX
SAN Server," at the Petri Knowledgebase that explained how to do this.
Set your time zone and configure your Network Time Protocol Server;
Configure the authorized network;
Create a volume group and add the new /dev/hdb;
Configure the iSCSI target by doing the following:
o naming the IQN
o mapping the logical unit number to the volume
o configuring the network ACL by allowing access to the network we created; and
o configure CHAP if you would like.
Prior to connecting your VMware ESX Server or other server to it, I suggest that you test the
configuration by connecting a Windows Server or Windows workstation to the new iSCSI
Server. If a Windows workstation cannot connect to the iSCSI server, then a VMware ESX
Server will never be able to connect to it. For instructions on how to connect your VMware ESX
Server to the Openfiler server, checkout my article "Connect VMware ESX Server to a free
iSCSI SAN using Openfiler".
As you can see in Figure 14 (below), I was able to connect my Windows 2008 Server to the new
Openfiler iSCSI Server.
Figure 14: Connected Windows 2008 Server to Openfiler iSCSI SAN Server
After that, I wiped out that data when I connected my VMware ESX Server to the same
Openfiler volume and formatted that volume with the VMware VMFS. Figure 15 (below) is my
VMware ESX Server connected to the Openfiler volume.
Figure 15: VMware ESX Server connected to the Openfiler iSCSI SAN Server
Conclusion
A real iSCSI SAN appliance or Fibre Channel SAN can be costly, but installing an open source
iSCSI SAN alternative, such as Openfiler, inside a Hyper-V virtual machine is a good
alternative. Openfiler works well, offers numerous storage and file-sharing features, and prevents
you from having to dedicate an entire physical machine to a real SAN application.