Using iSCSI On Fedora 10 (Initiator And Target)

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme

This guide explains how you can set up an iSCSI target and an iSCSI initiator (client), both running Fedora 10. The iSCSI protocol is a storage area network (SAN) protocol which allows iSCSI initiators to use storage devices on the (remote) iSCSI target using normal ethernet cabling. To the iSCSI initiator, the remote storage looks like a normal, locally-attached hard drive.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

I'm using two Fedora 10 servers here:

server1.example.com (Initiator): IP address 192.168.0.100
server2.example.com (Target): IP address 192.168.0.101

2 Setting Up The Target (server2)

server2:

First we set up the target (server2). Because the necessary packages are available in the RPMFusion repository only, we must enable it first:

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Then we can install the iSCSI target packages:

yum install iscsitarget kmod-iscsitarget

It is possible that this will also update your kernel. If this is the case, please reboot the system afterwards:

reboot

We can use unused logical volumes, image files, hard drives (e.g. /dev/sdb), hard drive partitions (e.g. /dev/sdb1) or RAID devices (e.g. /dev/md0) for the storage. In this example I will create a logical volume of 20GB named storage_lun1 in the volume group VolGroup00:

lvcreate -L20G -n storage_lun1 VolGroup00

(If you want to use an image file, you can create it as follows:

mkdir /storage
dd if=/dev/zero of=/storage/lun1.img bs=1024k count=20000

This creates the image file /storage/lun1.img with a size of 20GB.

)

Next we edit /etc/ietd.conf...

vi /etc/ietd.conf

... and comment out everything in that file. At the end we add the following stanza:

[...]
Target iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1
        IncomingUser someuser secret
        OutgoingUser
        Lun 0 Path=/dev/VolGroup00/storage_lun1,Type=fileio
        Alias LUN1
        #MaxConnections  6

The target name must be a globally unique name, the iSCSI standard defines the "iSCSI Qualified Name" as follows: iqn.yyyy-mm.<reversed domain name>[:identifier]; yyyy-mm is the date at which the domain is valid; the identifier is freely selectable. The IncomingUser line contains a username and a password so that only the initiators (clients) that provide this username and password can log in and use the storage device; if you don't need authentication, don't specify a username and password in the IncomingUser line. In the Lun line, we must specify the full path to the storage device (e.g. /dev/VolGroup00/storage_lun1, /storage/lun1.img, /dev/sdb, etc.).

Now we tell the target that we want to allow connections to the device iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1 from the IP address 192.168.0.100 (server1.example.com):

vi /etc/initiators.allow

[...]
iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1 192.168.0.100

Next we create the system startup links for iscsi-target and start it:

chkconfig --levels 235 iscsi-target on
/etc/init.d/iscsi-target start

3 Setting Up The Initiator (server1)

server1:

On server1, we install the initiator:

yum install iscsi-initiator-utils

Next we open /etc/iscsi/iscsid.conf...

vi /etc/iscsi/iscsid.conf

... and make sure that node.startup is set to automatic:

[...]
node.startup = automatic
[...]

Now we connect to the target (server2) and check what storage devices it has to offer:

iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p 192.168.0.101

[root@server1 init.d]# iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p 192.168.0.101
Starting iscsid: [ OK ]
192.168.0.101:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1
[root@server1 init.d]#

iscsiadm -m node

[root@server1 init.d]# iscsiadm -m node
192.168.0.101:3260,1 iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1
[root@server1 init.d]#

The settings for the storage device iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1 on 192.168.0.101:3260,1 are stored in the file /var/lib/iscsi/nodes/iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1/192.168.0.101,3260,1/default. We need to set the username and password for the target in that file; instead of editing that file manually, we can use the iscsiadm command to do this for us:

iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1" --portal "192.168.0.101:3260" --op=update --name node.session.auth.authmethod --value=CHAP
iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1" --portal "192.168.0.101:3260" --op=update --name node.session.auth.username --value=someuser
iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1" --portal "192.168.0.101:3260" --op=update --name node.session.auth.password --value=secret

Now we can log in:

iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1" --portal "192.168.0.101:3260" --login

[root@server1 init.d]# iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1" --portal "192.168.0.101:3260" --login
Logging in to [iface: default, target: iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1, portal: 192.168.0.101,3260]
Login to [iface: default, target: iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1, portal: 192.168.0.101,3260]: successful
[root@server1 init.d]#

(If you want to log out, you can run

iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.lun1" --portal "192.168.0.101:3260" --logout

)

In the output of

fdisk -l

you should now find a new hard drive (/dev/sdb in this example); that's our iSCSI storage device:

[root@server1 init.d]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 32.2 GB, 32212254720 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3916 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d5f46

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          25      200781   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              26        3916    31254457+  8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdb: 21.4 GB, 21474836480 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 20480 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
[root@server1 init.d]#

To use that device, we must format it:

fdisk /dev/sdb

[root@server1 init.d]# fdisk /dev/sdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0xa1870fdd.
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 20480.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): <-- n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
<-- p
Partition number (1-4): <-- 1
First cylinder (1-20480, default 1): <-- ENTER
Using default value 1
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (1-20480, default 20480): <-- ENTER
Using default value 20480

Command (m for help): <-- t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): <-- L

0  Empty           1e  Hidden W95 FAT1 80  Old Minix       bf  Solaris
1  FAT12           24  NEC DOS         81  Minix / old Lin c1  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
2  XENIX root      39  Plan 9          82  Linux swap / So c4  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
3  XENIX usr       3c  PartitionMagic  83  Linux           c6  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
4  FAT16 <32M      40  Venix 80286     84  OS/2 hidden C:  c7  Syrinx
5  Extended        41  PPC PReP Boot   85  Linux extended  da  Non-FS data
6  FAT16           42  SFS             86  NTFS volume set db  CP/M / CTOS / .
7  HPFS/NTFS       4d  QNX4.x          87  NTFS volume set de  Dell Utility
8  AIX             4e  QNX4.x 2nd part 88  Linux plaintext df  BootIt
9  AIX bootable    4f  QNX4.x 3rd part 8e  Linux LVM       e1  DOS access
a  OS/2 Boot Manag 50  OnTrack DM      93  Amoeba          e3  DOS R/O
b  W95 FAT32       51  OnTrack DM6 Aux 94  Amoeba BBT      e4  SpeedStor
c  W95 FAT32 (LBA) 52  CP/M            9f  BSD/OS          eb  BeOS fs
e  W95 FAT16 (LBA) 53  OnTrack DM6 Aux a0  IBM Thinkpad hi ee  GPT
f  W95 Ext'd (LBA) 54  OnTrackDM6      a5  FreeBSD         ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/
10  OPUS            55  EZ-Drive        a6  OpenBSD         f0  Linux/PA-RISC b
11  Hidden FAT12    56  Golden Bow      a7  NeXTSTEP        f1  SpeedStor
12  Compaq diagnost 5c  Priam Edisk     a8  Darwin UFS      f4  SpeedStor
14  Hidden FAT16 <3 61  SpeedStor       a9  NetBSD          f2  DOS secondary
16  Hidden FAT16    63  GNU HURD or Sys ab  Darwin boot     fb  VMware VMFS
17  Hidden HPFS/NTF 64  Novell Netware  b7  BSDI fs         fc  VMware VMKCORE
18  AST SmartSleep  65  Novell Netware  b8  BSDI swap       fd  Linux raid auto
1b  Hidden W95 FAT3 70  DiskSecure Mult bb  Boot Wizard hid fe  LANstep
1c  Hidden W95 FAT3 75  PC/IX           be  Solaris boot    ff  BBT
Hex code (type L to list codes): <-- 83

Command (m for help): <-- w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
[root@server1 init.d]#

Afterwards, the output of

fdisk -l

should look as follows:

[root@server1 init.d]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 32.2 GB, 32212254720 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3916 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d5f46

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          25      200781   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              26        3916    31254457+  8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdb: 21.4 GB, 21474836480 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 20480 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa1870fdd

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       20480    20971504   83  Linux
[root@server1 init.d]#

Now we create a filesystem on /dev/sdb1...

mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

... and mount it for test purposes:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

You should now see the new device in the outputs of...

mount

[root@server1 ~]# mount
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
/proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt type ext3 (rw)
[root@server1 ~]#

... and

df -h

[root@server1 ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                       29G  2.2G   25G   9% /
/dev/sda1             190M   13M  168M   8% /boot
tmpfs                 251M     0  251M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1              20G  173M   19G   1% /mnt
[root@server1 ~]#

You can unmount it like this:

umount /mnt

To have the device mounted automatically at boot time, e.g. in the directory /storage, we create that directory...

mkdir /storage

... and add the following line to /etc/fstab:

vi /etc/fstab

[...]
/dev/sdb1       /storage        ext3    defaults,auto,_netdev 0 0

For test purposes, you can now reboot the system:

reboot

After the reboot, the device should be mounted:

mount

df -h

4 Links

Open-iSCSI: http://www.open-iscsi.org/
iSCSI Enterprise Target: http://iscsitarget.sourceforge.net/
Fedora: http://fedoraproject.org/

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