[ipxe-devel] iPXE, ESXi 5.5 Stateless + Caching Install - BMP Razor + Chef Integration, Routed iSCSI, IaaS block

[Gene Cumm]

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Mike Harris <mharris at quovadis.bm> wrote:

> I've been able to get most of this working aside from the SAN volume (1).
> Routed iSCSI/NFS SAN volume is a challenge since the default iPXE binary
> doesn't support vcreate.  I haven't found any exampled of routed iSCSI (or
> NFS), I'm sure someone has, hopefully they're on this mailing list.

I'm presuming that "Routed" means traversing between subnets across a
gateway, ie from 192.0.2.0/24 to 198.51.100.0/24.

For starters, (unless VMware is playing a new tune with a new version)
you can't route iSCSI traffic with ESXi-5.  In ESX(i)-4 it was
discouraged and in 5.0, it was forbidden.  You won't successfully
connect.  It will see the discovery targets but not successfully
connect.  I had an environment where someone did this and it forced me
to run tests on my lab setup to determine that it could not be blindly
upgraded to 5.0 and would essentially require an extensive rebuild.

Second, (at least from the ESX(i)-perspective) it's very bad practice
to route for access to storage traffic.  ESX(i) would require that all
of your storage traffic go out the vmk (VMKernel port, an IP
interface) that has the default gateway unless you do some more
advanced routing rules (highly discouraged).

> If anyone has any tips on routed iSCSI/NFS boot volumes, and Razor/Chef
> integration experience, I'd be move appreciative for some feedback on how
> you managed iSRB.  I have a pretty network diagram of the POC which I'm
> happy to share if you're interested.

-- 
-Gene