VMware cluster and croit work together very well. It is possible to store VMs on Ceph RBD via the iSCSI protocol. With the help of our iSCSI service gateways we achieve a HA Multipath iSCSI setup, which can keep the VMs running even if individual nodes or network segments fail.
SETTING UP ISCSI
- Navigate to http://mgmt-node:8080/services
- Press
+ iSCSI
in the action bar at the bottom of your window - Select at least two servers to use for HA
ADD GROUP
- Select the newly created iSCSI service
- Press
edit
in the action bar at the bottom of your window - Press
+ Add Client
in the action bar at the bottom of your window
ADD IMAGE TO GROUP
- Navigate into the group register and select the newly created group
- Press
+ Add Image
in the action bar at the bottom of your window
Repeat that step until you have enough images configured.
Please note that for Multipath at least the number of images must be available as paths want to use them.
ADD CLIENT USING THE VMWARE IQN
- Open your VMware Webinterface in another browser tab
- Navigate into Storage and select Software-iSCSI
- A configuration dialog will show up and provide you a
Name and Alias
. Copy it!
- Navigate back to your croit iSCSI configuration dialog
- Paste the IQN string from the VMware Interface into the Dialog
- Add a Username of your choice
- Add a Passwort of your choice, or generate one
- Select the previously created iSCSI group
SAVE ISCSI CONFIGURATION IN VMWARE
- Navigate to your VMware Webinterface
- Configure the
username
andpassword
- Expand the CHAP authentication section, select
Do not use CHAP unless required by target
The Mutual CHAP authentication section should haveDo not use CHAP
selected - Save the configuration and verify that everything is working as expected
SET ISCSI RECOVERY TIMEOUT IN VMWARE
Expand Advanced settings and set the “RecoveryTimeout” to 25.
VMWare tends to have pathing issues with ceph-iscsi, causing the gateways to crash. Set this:
esxcli storage nmp satp rule add -V LIO-ORG -M "TCMU device" -P VMW_PSP_MRU -s VMW_SATP_ALUA
esxcli storage core claimrule load
And reboot your hypervisor afterwards.
Contact us!
croit GmbH
Freseniusstrasse 31h
81247 Munich
Germany
croit North America Inc
6800 Weiskopf Avenue
Suite 150 PMB #1786
McKinney
TX 75070