How to create a shared storage for 2 VM machine using iscsi target(VM)

cshanmug · 09-14-2010, 09:57 AM

Hello All,

Could anyone please let me know how the below config can be achieved?

2 VM Machines (Red Hat 5) or OEL(Oracle Unbreakable Linux 5)

The above 2 VM Machines should access a shared storage using iSCSI target
(Iam keep hearing about iSCSI initiator, i dont' know about that)

I have only one Dell Poweredge T410 machine w/ required resources.

Thanks for all.
Shan

dyasny · 09-15-2010, 03:21 AM

so those two VMs are running on that single hypervisor, and should be accessing some shared storage? and the storage should also be on the disk drive of that hypervisor machine?

pvs · 09-15-2010, 06:51 AM

iSCSI initiator - that's software you use to connect to iSCSI target.
Both (initiator and target) implementations for linux can be found here
http://unh-iscsi.sourceforge.net/
iSCSI disk will be exported to client machine as a block device, so you sould use some cluster FS (the list is here: http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/Lin...leSystems.html) or, if you decide to use ordinary FS, you should use it read-only.

cshanmug · 09-15-2010, 09:13 AM

Thanks dyasny.
YES. Actually, I should have told you, I have the storage local to the host of the 2 vm machines. Meaning 1 Physical host w/250GB HD, and 2 VM machines will be created on top of it and would like to share 100gb to both the VM machines. Since there are many options i've read, like SAN, NAS, NFS, iSCSI, i'd like to go with iSCSI.

cshanmug · 09-15-2010, 09:15 AM

Thanks pvs.
First let me read the links you provided and get back to you, if I have questions. Iam buying the DELL Poweredge T410 today to implement the above config.

dyasny · 09-16-2010, 01:45 AM

ok, the best and easiest solution would be to use NFS. The reason is, if you use block storage sharing like iSCSI, the provided LUN will have to be formatted with a cluster filesystem, or both VMs will not be able to use it at once. NFS is a network FS, like SMB shares, so you can provide NFS shares to multipale clients simultaneously, without fear of disk corruption. NFS will handle the file access conflicts automatically