ESXi 6.7: Help with setting up datastore from FreeNas VM

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

Hi all!

I hope its okay to post this asking for some help…

After a couple of years with FreeNas on bare metal and without any proper virtualization-solution i decided to migrate FreeNas in to a VM on ESXi since I’ve been using ESXi for several years earlier.
Everything went well, all HBAs passed through and FreeNas VM is up and running with the old pools and vmxnet3.

What i cant wrap my head around is how to set up a datastore for ESXi on the FreeNas VM in ESXi’s web client?
Found a guide online, but only for earlier versions using the windows client for ESXi…
Tried to add datastore using NFS, but nothing happens when pressing “Finish”.
The NFS-share is working properly on the FreeNas VM and i can mount them on my clients.
Tried setting up iSCSI but i cant get that to work either…

Do i need to set up a special virtual switch for storage-network? And how do i do so if thats the case?
Tried to manage doing just that with a mix of steps from that older guide i found and some guessing for when stuff didnt look the same in ESXi 6.7 but is probably doing something wrong there…

Or is there maybe a better way of doing this?

Thanks from a slightly more thin-haired Swede!

2

I’ve done this in the past using iSCSI and is annoying to setup. Could you link the guide you ended up using or can elaborate on steps taken?

3

Hey 2bit and thanks for your reply,

I’m not allowed (i think?) to post links in the forum… So i’ll try with screenshots:

guide_1
guide_1.PNG871×857 81.5 KB

guide_2
guide_2.PNG867×820 80.1 KB

Steps taken for iSCSI;
Tried to follow the first steps in above guide to create a separate switch for storage, but there is so much that is different in the new web-client compared to the version they are using in the guide so I wasnt able to create the switch from the guide.
Creating a iSCSI-share in FreeNas (cant remember if its called target or initiator at this point) was quite easy and is ready to rock.

Just cant figure out how to connect that to ESXi as a datastore…?

4

Sooo, i think i figured out somewhat of a solution…
I’m not 100% happy with it but atleast it works for now.

What i did was:

  1. On the FreeNas VM I added an extra NIC, vmxnet3. Configured it with static ip 10.10.10.2 and mtu 9000 in UI. Added that IP to my iSCSI share.
  2. In ESXi I created a “VMkernel NIC” with static IP outside my normal range, in my case 10.10.10.1. And with mtu = 9000. I also chose “vSwitch0” here.
  3. In “Storage” in web-client i added a “Software iSCSI” and chose the above portbindnings and dynamic target as the FreeNas NIC/IP.
  4. After that it was only to create a datastore on the iSCSI-link…

My topology now:

Screenshot_20191227_165206
Screenshot_20191227_165206.png2283×507 73.7 KB

What I dont like, or maybe im wrong about this so please comment:
I would have liked to have the iSCSI on a separate “virtual switch”. But when i created one in ESXi i couldn’t choose it when adding the extra vNIC to the FreeNas VM. I could only choose “VM Network” which is in “vSwitch0”. Maybe this doesn’t matter that the iSCSI is on the same vSwitch as all other traffic from VMs?

What I like:
So far, the performance on iSCSI from the FreeNas VM on a 6x4TB WD red raid10 seems good enough so far. Maybe someone have something to add here?

5

Try tagging your other vSwitch with a different VLAN ID, that may work for you. Glad you figured it out!

6

Thanks for the tip! I’ll try that out when i get the time