SAN iSCSI Initiator Configuration

iSCSI initiators have the following configurable properties.

Table 2-26 SAN iSCSI Initiator Properties

Property	Description
Initiator IQN	The IQN for this initiator
Alias	A human-readable nickname for this initiator
Use CHAP	Enables or disables CHAP authentication
CHAP name	If CHAP authentication is used, the CHAP username
CHAP secret	If CHAP authentication is used, the CHAP secret

When planning your iSCSI client configuration, you will need the following information:

Which initiators (and their IQNs) will be accessing the SAN?
If you plan on using CHAP authentication, what CHAP credentials does each initiator use?
How many iSCSI disks (LUNs) are required, and how big should they be?
Do the LUNs need to be shared between multiple initiators?

To allow the appliance to perform CHAP authentication using RADIUS, the following pieces of information must match:

The appliance must specify the address of the RADIUS server and a secret to use when communicating with this RADIUS server
The RADIUS server (for example, in its clients file) must have an entry giving the address of this appliance and specifying the same secret as earlier
The RADIUS server (for example, in its users file) must have an entry giving the CHAP name and matching CHAP secret of each initiator
If the initiator uses its IQN name as its CHAP name (the recommended configuration), then the appliance does not need a separate initiator entry for each initiator box; the RADIUS server can perform all authentication steps.
If the initiator uses a separate CHAP name, then the appliance must have an initiator entry for that initiator that specifies the mapping from IQN name to CHAP name. This initiator entry does NOT need to specify the CHAP secret for the initiator.

For tips on troubleshooting common iSCSI misconfiguration, see iSCSI.

iSCSI performance can be observed via Analytics, whereby one can break down operations or throughput by initiator, target, or LUN.