pve-storage-iscsi.adoc

   1 http://www.open-iscsi.org/[Open-iSCSI] initiator
   2 ------------------------------------------------
   3 include::attributes.txt[]
   4 ifdef::wiki[]
   5 :pve-toplevel:
   6 :title: Storage: iSCSI
   7 endif::wiki[]
   8
   9 Storage pool type: `iscsi`
  10
  11 iSCSI is a widely employed technology used to connect to storage
  12 servers. Almost all storage vendors support iSCSI. There are also open
  13 source iSCSI target solutions available,
  14 e.g. http://www.openmediavault.org/[OpenMediaVault], which is based on
  15 Debian.
  16
  17 To use this backend, you need to install the `open-iscsi`
  18 package. This is a standard Debian package, but it is not installed by
  19 default to save resources.
  20
  21   # apt-get install open-iscsi
  22
  23 Low-level iscsi management task can be done using the `iscsiadm` tool.
  24
  25
  26 Configuration
  27 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  28
  29 The backend supports the common storage properties `content`, `nodes`,
  30 `disable`, and the following iSCSI specific properties:
  31
  32 portal::
  33
  34 iSCSI portal (IP or DNS name with optional port).
  35
  36 target::
  37
  38 iSCSI target.
  39
  40
  41 .Configuration Example (`/etc/pve/storage.cfg`)
  42 ----
  43 iscsi: mynas
  44      portal 10.10.10.1
  45      target iqn.2006-01.openfiler.com:tsn.dcb5aaaddd
  46      content none
  47 ----
  48
  49 TIP: If you want to use LVM on top of iSCSI, it make sense to set
  50 `content none`. That way it is not possible to create VMs using iSCSI
  51 LUNs directly.
  52
  53
  54 File naming conventions
  55 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  56
  57 The iSCSI protocol does not define an interface to allocate or delete
  58 data. Instead, that needs to be done on the target side and is vendor
  59 specific. The target simply exports them as numbered LUNs. So {pve}
  60 iSCSI volume names just encodes some information about the LUN as seen
  61 by the linux kernel.
  62
  63
  64 Storage Features
  65 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  66
  67 iSCSI is a block level type storage, and provides no management
  68 interface.  So it is usually best to export one big LUN, and setup LVM
  69 on top of that LUN. You can then use the LVM plugin to manage the
  70 storage on that iSCSI LUN.
  71
  72 .Storage features for backend `iscsi`
  73 [width="100%",cols="m,m,3*d",options="header"]
  74 |==============================================================================
  75 |Content types  |Image formats  |Shared |Snapshots |Clones
  76 |images none    |raw            |yes    |no        |no
  77 |==============================================================================
  78
  79
  80 Examples
  81 ~~~~~~~~
  82
  83 Scan a remote iSCSI portal, and returns a list of possible targets:
  84
  85  pvesm iscsiscan -portal <HOST[:PORT]>
  86
  87 ifdef::wiki[]
  88
  89 See Also
  90 ~~~~~~~~
  91
  92 * link:/wiki/Storage[Storage]
  93
  94 endif::wiki[]
  95
  96