Configuring Solaris iSCSI Targets and Initiators (System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems)

System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems

Configuring Solaris iSCSI Targets and Initiators

Configuring your Solaris iSCSI targets and initiators involves the following steps:

Identifying the hardware and software requirements
Configuring your IP network
Connecting and setting up your iSCSI target device
(Optional) Configuring iSCSI authentication between the iSCSI initiator and the iSCSI target, if necessary
Configuring the iSCSI target discovery method
Creating file systems on your iSCSI disks
Monitoring your iSCSI configuration

The iSCSI configuration information is stored in the /etc/iscsi directory. This information requires no administration.

iSCSI Terminology

Review the following terminology before configuring iSCSI targets and initiators.

Term	Description
Initiator	The driver that initiates SCSI requests to the iSCSI target.
Target device	The iSCSI storage component.
Discovery	The process that presents the initiator with a list of available targets.
Discovery method	The way in which the iSCSI targets can be found. Three methods are currently available: Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) – Potential targets are discovered by interacting with one or more iSNS servers. SendTargets – Potential targets are discovered by using a `discovery-address.` Static – Static target addressing is configured.

Configuring Dynamic or Static Target Discovery

Determine whether you want to configure one of the dynamic device discovery methods or use static iSCSI initiator targets to perform device discovery.

Dynamic device discovery – If an iSCSI node exposes many targets, such as an iSCSI to Fibre-Channel bridge, you can supply the iSCSI node IP address/port combination and allow the iSCSI initiator to use the SendTargets features to perform device discovery.

Two dynamic device discovery methods are available:
- SendTargets - If an iSCSI node exposes a large number of targets, such as an iSCSI to Fibre-Channel bridge, you can supply the iSCSI node IP address/port combination and allow the iSCSI initiator to use the SendTargets features to perform the device discovery.
- iSNS - iSNS (Internet Storage Name Service) allows the iSCSI initiator to discover the targets to which it has access using as little configuration information as possible. It also provides state change notification to notify the iSCSI initiator when changes in the operational state of storage nodes occur. To use the iSNS discovery method, you can supply the iSNS server address/port combination and allow the iSCSI initiator to query the iSNS servers that you specified to perform the device discovery. The default port for the iSNS server is 3205. For more information about iSNS, see RFC 4171:
  
  http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4171.txt
  
  The iSNS discovery service provides an administrative model to discover all targets in a network.
  
  For more information about setting up Solaris iSNS support, see Chapter 15, Configuring and Managing the Solaris Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS).
Static device discovery – If an iSCSI node has few targets or if you want to restrict the targets that the initiator attempts to access, you can statically configure the target-name by using the following static target address naming convention:

target,target-address[:port-number]

You can determine the static target address from the array's management tool.

Note –

Do not configure an iSCSI target to be discovered by both static and dynamic device discovery methods. The consequence of using redundant discovery methods might be slow performance when the initiator is communicating with the iSCSI target device.