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Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

 
Peter J West
Frequent Advisor

Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

Hi,

 

First time i've had to do this - most of our machines run as VM's on an ESX cluster so we don't generally have to worry about configuring a phsyical Server to boot from the SAN (ESX is installed on a mirrored pair on each Server in the Cluster).

 

However, we have a new physical Server which we'd like to configure to boot from the SAN.  It's a Proliant DL380 G7 which comes with a quad port Broadcom adapter included.

 

My question is - has anyone got any pointers on how to configure this to boot from the P4500 cluster?

 

I've put the settings in that I think are appropraite and made a volume avaialble to the Server but I get a 'Failed (Target not found)' message when trying to boot.

 

The address i've given for the target IP is the Cluster VIP and the name is the volume name i've assigned in the CMC.  I've also manually specified the IP details for the Servers connection to our SAN VLAN and double-checked (by flashing the NIC light) to ensure that the correct interface is connected to the SAN network.

 

If anyone has any recommendations or pointers on configuring this then i'd be very grateful.

 

Regards

 

Pete

 

7 REPLIES 7
Peter J West
Frequent Advisor

Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

Quick update.

 

My target name was wrong - I actually needed the IQN which I found hidden away on the volume details tab.

 

Now i've updated the config I get another error: Failed (Target hardware or software error).

 

Any clues on this one?


Thanks


Pete

 

diegowsky
HPE Pro

Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

Hi,

 

   I was getting the same error when doing a lab testing.

 

   The error is because you are putting the "Cluster IP" in the Target Parameters, and apparently, the Broadcom ROM will not understand the redirection or whatever the LeftHand Cluster IP is throwing to it.

 

   It will work fine if you put the "real" server IP.

 

Thanks!

AshishC
New Member

Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

You said " It will work fine if you put the "real" server IP."

 

Could you please tell me which real server IP?

David_Tocker
Regular Advisor

Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

My advise is to avoid it like the plague.

The price of disks (or USB/SD flash) to boot from these days hardly justifies the process unless you plan to scale it out large.

If this is your intention then disregard my note - it may make sense to go down this path.

In the case of a massive outage this may just add one more thing to fix, so think hard about how much you like using the iLO's on your servers :)

 

I would however be very interested to see someone get it working in a reasonable fashion for lab purposes.

 

Good luck with it if you choose to persevere - keep us updated :)

Regards.

David Tocker
David_Tocker
Regular Advisor

Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

In reference to your actual issue - I understand the broadcom iscsi boot does not understand the VIP or mutipathing, I suggest breaking out some google-foo - I think i remember some people having to use an actual node address or updating the firmware or something from the dregs of my memory... remember windows/esx needs the MPIO driver to understand the P4000 VIP....

Regards.

David Tocker
jonno232
New Member

Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

Did anyone ever get this resolved?

Jess1313
Advisor

Re: Boot to iSCSI LUN on P4000 cluster using Broadcom Interface?

Some Broadcom HBA's are supported for boot-from SAN specifically the NC553i and NC553m, however both HBA's are only supported in a Windows Environment per the HP P4000 Compatibility Matrix at http://h20272.www2.hp.com/utility/document.aspx?docurl=Shared%20Documents/hw/iscsi/p4000_compatibility_matrix.2012_09_05.pdf however this HBA is not supported with VMWare.

Hope this helps.