iSCSI initiator and Dell PowerVault MD3000i

Miroslav Lachman 000.fbsd at quip.cz
Mon Dec 21 18:08:58 UTC 2009


Daniel Braniss wrote:

[...]

> it would be helpful if you can describe what you are trying to accomplish.

To make it short:
I am trying to connect FreeBSD 7.2 machine to storage array Dell PV MD3000i.
MD3000i has 2 controllers to accomplish multipath fail-over in case of 
failure of anything in the path (controller, ethernet cable, switch etc.).
FreeBSD machine is connected by 2 NICs (bce1 and bce3), one crosslink 
cable to controller 0, one crosslink cable to controller 1.
As I read on the net, it seems possible to run it in this setup with 
Windows, Linux, VMware or XenServer.

It seems not possible to use it this way on FreeBSD (with gmultipath)

Example of commands and outputs I tried is available at 
http://pastebin.com/f2d9566c4

Links to MD3000i documentation of redundancy:
Hardware Redundancy and Failover
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/md3000i/en/2ndGen/HOM/HTML/using.htm#wp1091611

RAID Controller Failover Modes
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/md3000i/en/2ndGen/HOM/HTML/using.htm#wp1093253

You can imagine my setup as the one on this page
http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Products/HA/DellRedHatHALinuxCluster/Storage/PowerVault_MD3000i/Hardware
Except I have just one node and no switches (directly connected)

I think there is in-band management commands (management over iSCSI 
interface of the MD3000i) used to move virtual disks between controllers 
driven by connected host / driver in OS.

I am not too experienced with iSCSI / SCSI, so please correct me if I am 
doing something wrong or I have wrong expectations.

Miroslav Lachman


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