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iSCSI Boot via appliance ports and their dependancy on uplinks?

osamamasfary
Level 1
Level 1

Hi All,

I have a question in regards to ISCSI boot via an appliance port on a Cisco UCS 6248 fi. The set up currently consists of a NetApp filer (FAS3240) with a direct connection to the FI via an appliance port. The finalised setup will be eventually connected to the LAN via uplink ports, thus creating a secondary path. However, for the time being, the iscsi boot is failing to detect the directly connected LUNs by displaying the "initialize error 1" message. So the question really is whether the appliance ports have a low level dependancy on the uplinks and connectivity to the network. Has this been set up without an active uplink?

Cheers,

11 Replies 11

Robert Burns
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Osama,

The VLAN you're using for your appliance port, have you created under both the "Appliance VLAN" and regular LAN VLAN objects?

Robert

Hi Rob,

The VLAN was created on both the LAN and Appliance sections using different names and same ID. The mac address table of the FI seems to correctly register the mac address of the NetApp storage under the appliance port.

Cheers,

Osama

Good - if you see the MAC on the FI interface you're heading in the right direction.  Sounds like you have a host side config issue.

Which version of UCSM exactly?

Which adaptor?

Can you explain exactly the steps you did to setup iscsi on the profile.

Robert

I get that error when trying to login to the same target on one interface twice. Check out the steps starting here "

After Boot Policy is applied “Set iSCSI Boot Parameters” for NAS controller 1" on a walkthrough I did here: http://realworlducs.com/cisco-ucs-iscsi-boot-appliance-ports/

Craig

My UCS Blog http://realworlducs.com

Hi Robert,

I'm currently using version 2.0(1s) and Cisco M81KR Virtual Interface Card (VIC). In regards to the steps used to setup iSCSI, the attached document was mainly used (starting page 9).

In summary:

● Created vNICs using expert Mode

● Added iSCSI vNICs

● Overlay vNIC is the parent to the iSCSI vNIC created

● iSCSI Adapter Policy (default) .

● VLAN Selection (from overlay/parent vNIC VLANs)

● iSCSI MAC Address Assignment (VIC must be set to “none”)

● Boot Policy, add iSCSI vNICs

I have opted out of authentication profiles.

Cheers

Hi Osama,

Have a look through the following Cisco UCS white paper on setting up iSCSI with a NetApp Storage:

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Storage Connectivity Options and Best Practices with NetApp Storage

It also mentions the use of iSCSI with appliance ports.

Thanks,

Michael

Hi Michael,

That was the same white paper of which I have used for the implementation.

I've extracted the following errors from the CLI:

vnic_id: 5

         link_state: Up

       Initiator Cfg:

     initiator_state: ISCSI_INITIATOR_READY

initiator_error_code: ISCSI_BOOT_NIC_NO_ERROR

               vlan: 0

         dhcp status: false

                 IQN: iqn.1992-08.com.cisco-ucs: esx01-vnic7

             IP Addr: 10.0.199.56

         Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.128

             Gateway: 10.0.199.73

         Target Cfg:

         Target Idx: 0

               State: ISCSI_TARGET_LOGIN

         Prev State: ISCSI_TARGET_DISABLED

       Target Error: ISCSI_TARGET_NO_ERROR

                 IQN: iqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.1574897543

             IP Addr: 10.0.199.73

               Port: 3260

           Boot Lun: 0

         Ping Stats: In Progress

vnic_id: 5

         link_state: Up

       Initiator Cfg:

     initiator_state: ISCSI_INITIATOR_READY

initiator_error_code: ISCSI_BOOT_NIC_NO_ERROR

               vlan: 0

         dhcp status: false

                 IQN: iqn.1992-08.com.cisco-ucs:inml-pri-esx01-vnic7

             IP Addr: 10.0.199.56

         Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.128

             Gateway: 10.0.199.73

         Target Cfg:

         Target Idx: 0

               State: INVALID

        Prev State: ISCSI_TARGET_GET_SESSION_INFO

       Target Error: ISCSI_TARGET_LOGIN_ERROR

                 IQN: iqn.1992-08.com.netapp:sn.1574897543

             IP Addr: 10.0.199.73

               Port: 3260

           Boot Lun: 0

         Ping Stats: Failed - Connection timed out

I've noticed that the vnic id shownn above (5) doesnt match the vnic id configured on the iscsi vnic (1). could this be a mapping issue?

A couple things to double check:

1. The iSCSI vNIC "name" matches exactly the one defined in the Boot policy.  By Default we enforce the name matching, so if didn't match them exactly, you'll have an error. (Ex. iscsi0 in service profile vs. something like vnic-iscsi0 in the boot policy.

2. That the iSCSI vNIC uses the native VLAN of the vNIC

3. The appliance port is configured for the proper speed.  (10G by default, but for 1G you need to manually change this).

I notice the Ping Status of the iSCSI target shows "in progress"  this means it can't reach the device.

From the UCSM do the following:

connect nxos

show int x/y -> Does the Interface show up?

show mac address interface x/y -> Are you seeing the MAC address of the NetApp?

If you see a dynamic MAC address being learned on the interface (which should match your Netapp interface) then check your native VLAN configuration on the service profile. If you don't see any MAC being learned, you likely have a L2 problem, either port speed setting or other..

Is the appliance port configued as an Access or Trunk port?  NetApp supports both but you need the appropriiate tagging/config to do so.

Beow you'll see my system is using eth1/1 as a 1G access appliance port.

Regards,

Robert

HiRob,

Its working now and the blades are accessing the luns. However i have had to apply the following changes:

1. Previously i had a multimode VIF of 2 links being 2a and 2b (single virtual IP) connecting the netapp to each FI. The virtual IP was then used as the static target for the iscsi initiators. The VIFs mac address was discovered by the FI but no connection was successful. Not sure if this is supported but it deff didnt work for me. My other alternative was to just create two individual interfaces with both sharing the vlans. 1 IP was assigned per interface and they were configured for pri and sec iscsi vnics.

2. Ive used the default native vlan of 1

3. required an active uplink.

Would you be able to confirm the possibility of configuring a netapp multi mode VIF between 1 controller and 2 FI. I understand that in a flexpod scenario with the precense of nxos 5k then an LACP VIF is achievable.

Cheers,

os

please excuse any typos, sent from smartphone

Hi Osama ,

As per BRKCOM 2002 Page 59  , it looks like the configuration is unsupported :

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-21269

Regards

Vikas Srivastava

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