Setup Openfiler 2.3 iSCSI on ESXi 4 for Windows

1. Upload folder openfiler-2.3-x86 to the datastore through Datastore Browser. Right click openfiler-2.3-x86.vmx in the folder and select Add to Inventory. Enter the name then click Next button twice, and Finish button to complete the process.

2. Click Edit settings for openfiler, the add hard disk from ESXi as the new iSCSI storage device for Openfiler.

3. Power on the Openfiler, and open the console to confirm the URL for web administration. I use https://192.168.1.105:446 as an example.

4. Logon to Openfiler with your web browser at https://192.168.1.105:446 with the openfiler and password as the user name and password respectively.

5. Go to Volumes, a warning "No existing physical volumes were found, or all existing physical volumes are used. You can create new physical volumes" shows up. Click create new physical volumes, the newly added disk, /dev/sdb, has no partition. Select /dev/sdb from the Edit Disk list, then click Create button to use the entire disk space for the single partition.

6. Go to Volume Groups to create a group by entering the Volume group name and select physical volume /dev/sdb1 to add, then click Add volume group button to complete. Click Add volume, enter the volume name, description, select required space, and then select the filesystem/volume type to iSCSI, finally click Create to create the volume.

7. Go to System, in Network Access Configuration section, enter 192.168.1.0 for both Name and Network/Host, select 255.255.255.0 as Netmask, and select Share as Type, then click Update button.

8. Go to Services and enable iSCSI target server.

9. Go to Volumes, click iSCSI targets, select target configuration, the default target name is shown up, if no changes needed, click Add button to add the new target. Select LUN Mapping, then click Map button. Select Network ACL, select Allow from the Access list, and then click Update button.

10. Windows XP is used to test this iSCSI storage. Download the software from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=12cb3c1a-15d6-4585-b385-befd1319f825&displaylang=en, and then install it to you PC.

11. On Windows, from All programs, select Microsoft iSCSI Initiator for configuration. Select Discovery then click Add button to add target portal, enter the IP address of the Openfiler, then click OK.

12. Select Targets then click Log On button. Select Automatically restore this connection when the system boots, then click OK button twice to finish the Windows XP setup.

13. From the disk manager, the Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard pops up automatically. Click Next button to continue. Select the correct disk, then click Next button. It reminds you that the disk will be converted to dynamic disk. Reselect the disk, then click Next then Finish button. Right click on the new disk, and then select New Volume to start the Wizard, click Next button to continue. The simple volume is the default for a single disk volume, click Next button to continue. If the entire disk is used, click Next button to continue. Select the drive letter, the click Next button. Select the Volume label, the click Next button. Click Finish button to finish performing the disk format. Finally, the iSCSI disk is created like a local disk to Windows.