Re: Mounting an iSCSI LUN w/ NetApp Simulator in Windows XP Pro

jmmorrell · ‎2008-09-03

Do you need SnapDrive in order to mount an iSCSI LUN using the Microsoft iSCSI initiator?

adamfox · ‎2008-09-03

It's not required, it's just easier. All you absolutely need is an iSCSI initiator on your Windows host. Then once you properly mask the LUN and set up the iSCSI connection to the NTAP controller, you should be able to use the standard Windows administration tools to see, label, and format the LUN just like a new disk.

jmmorrell · ‎2008-09-03

I am using the NetApp simulator. I have the MS iSCSI initiator loaded on my machine. I believe I setup the iSCSI & LUN configurations properly in the NetApp sim. I just can't seem to find in windows where to go. I don't see anything under disk management for my computer.

jmmorrell · ‎2008-09-03

nevermind. i needed to reboot my pc. now it is showing under disk management as an unformatted disk. thanks for your fast response.

adamfox · ‎2008-09-03

Cool. In general, you shouldn't have to reboot each time you add a disk. You should be able to do a rescan and see new LUNs if they've been masked properly.

In any case, glad you're up and working.

jack · ‎2008-09-11

Hi guys, I just started testing with iSCSI as well. I created a LUN on the filer then connected a XP machine and a 2003 server to the same LUN. I noticed that when I copy a file to the LUN it's not seen by the other OS until I reboot. Isn't the point of connecting two different system to the same LUN is so that they can share the same store, i.e. a database incase a node in the cluster fails he other can pick up where the other one left off?!

Thanks for any direction!

pum · ‎2008-09-12

Jack,

Unless you have a cluster filesystem or are using Microsoft Clustering/Veritas Clustering, a LUN is meant to be presented to a single system only.

What you're seeing is that both your XP and 2003 machine believe they are the sole owner of that filesystem.

If you're just trying to share files between these machines on a NetApp, it sounds like you want to be using a regular volume shared with CIFS.

If you do that - then both machines will see updates at the same time.

jack · ‎2008-09-15

Basically I want to setup a test Exchange cluster or SQL cluster and have the database on the filer and connect to it via iSCSI. With my initial testing and couldn't understand how the failover cluster would take over if my XP machine and 2003 machine couldn't see the same data. I figured the failover cluster wouldn't have the latest copy of the database to work with.

reznickgroup · ‎2008-09-15

How do you mask the LUN?

pum · ‎2008-09-15

LUN masking is handled by defining igroups on the NetApp controller.

You define an igroup, specifying the OS type.
Then you add IQNs to the igroup (of WWNs if using FCP).

Finally you add LUNs to the igroup.

At that point, any members of the igroup can see any LUNs in the igroup.

reznickgroup · ‎2008-09-16

Ok. That's what I thought. Just wanted to make sure we are on the same page.