Configure iSCSI Target & Initiator on CentOS 7 / RHEL7

1

iSCSI stands for Internet Small Computer Systems Interface, IP-based storage, works on top of internet protocol by carrying SCSI commands over IP network. iSCSI transports block-level data between an iSCSI initiator on a client machine and an iSCSI target on a storage device (server).

iSCSI storage is used as shared storage in Redhat cluster, VMware vSphere, Redhat Enterprise Virtualization Manager, Ovirt, etc.

Environment

Server: server.itzgeek.local

IP Address: 192.168.12.20

OS: CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core)

Client: node1.itzgeek.local

IP Address: 192.168.12.11

OS: CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core)

Storage Configuration

Here, we will create 5GB of LVM disk on the target server to use as shared storage for clients. Let’s list the available disks attached to the target server using below command. If you want to use the whole disk for LVM, then skip the disk partitioning step.

[root@server ~]# fdisk -l | grep -i sd

Output:

Disk /dev/sda: 107.4 GB, 107374182400 bytes, 209715200 sectors
 /dev/sda1   *        2048     1026047      512000   83  Linux
 /dev/sda2         1026048   209715199   104344576   8e  Linux LVM
 Disk /dev/sdb: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes, 20971520 sectors

From the above output, you can see that my system has a 10GB of disk (/dev/sdb). We will create a 5GB partition on the above disk and will use it for LVM.

[root@server ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb
 Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.23.2).
 Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
 Be careful before using the write command.
 Device does not contain a recognized partition table
 Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x173dfa4d.
 Command (m for help): n  --> New partition
 Partition type:
   p   primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
   e   extended
 Select (default p): p --> Pimary partition
 Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1 - -> Partition number
 First sector (2048-20971519, default 2048): --> Just enter
 Using default value 2048
 Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-20971519, default 20971519): +5G  --> Enter the size
 Partition 1 of type Linux and of size 5 GiB is set
 Command (m for help): t  --> Change label
 Selected partition 1
 Hex code (type L to list all codes): 8e --> Change it as LVM label
 Changed type of partition 'Linux' to 'Linux LVM'
 Command (m for help): w --> Save
 The partition table has been altered!
 Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
 Syncing disks.

Create a LVM with /dev/sdb1 partition (replace /dev/sdb1 with your disk name)

[root@server ~]# pvcreate /dev/sdb1
[root@server ~]# vgcreate vg_iscsi /dev/sdb1
[root@server ~]# lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n lv_iscsi vg_iscsi

Configure iSCSI target

Now you have an option of creating target either with or without authentication. In this article, you can find steps for both scenarios. It is up to you to decide which one is suitable for your environment.

Here, will configure iSCSI target without CHAP authentication.

Install the targetcli package on the server.

[root@server ~]# yum install targetcli -y

Once you installed the package, enter below command to get an iSCSI CLI for an interactive prompt.

[root@server ~]# targetcli
Warning: Could not load preferences file /root/.targetcli/prefs.bin.
targetcli shell version 2.1.fb41
Copyright 2011-2013 by Datera, Inc and others.
For help on commands, type 'help'.
>

Now use an existing logical volume (/dev/vg_iscsi/lv_iscsi) as a block-type backing store for storage object scsi_disk1_server“.

/> cd backstores/block
/backstores/block> create scsi_disk1_server /dev/vg_iscsi/lv_iscsi
Created block storage object scsi_disk1_server using /dev/vg_iscsi/lv_iscsi.

Create a target.

/backstores/block> cd /iscsi
/iscsi> create iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1
Created target iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1.
Created TPG 1.
Global pref auto_add_default_portal=true
Created default portal listening on all IPs (0.0.0.0), port 3260.
/iscsi>

Create ACL for client machine (It’s the IQN which clients use to connect).

/iscsi> cd /iscsi/iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1/tpg1/acls
/iscsi/iqn.20...sk1/tpg1/acls> create iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:node1node2
Created Node ACL for iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:node1node2

Create a LUN under the target. The LUN should use the previously mentioned backing storage object named “scsi_disk1_server“.

/iscsi/iqn.20...er:disk1/tpg1> cd /iscsi/iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1/tpg1/luns
/iscsi/iqn.20...sk1/tpg1/luns> create /backstores/block/scsi_disk1_server 
Created LUN 0.
Created LUN 0->0 mapping in node ACL iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:node1node2

Verify the target server configuration.

/iscsi/iqn.20.../tpg1/portals> cd /
/> ls
o- / ......................................................................................................................... [...]
  o- backstores .............................................................................................................. [...]
  | o- block .................................................................................................. [Storage Objects: 1]
  | | o- scsi_disk1_server .................................................. [/dev/vg_iscsi/lv_iscsi (5.0GiB) write-thru activated]
  | o- fileio ................................................................................................. [Storage Objects: 0]
  | o- pscsi .................................................................................................. [Storage Objects: 0]
  | o- ramdisk ................................................................................................ [Storage Objects: 0]
  o- iscsi ............................................................................................................ [Targets: 1]
  | o- iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1 ............................................................................ [TPGs: 1]
  |   o- tpg1 .................................................................................................. [gen-acls, no-auth]
  |     o- acls .......................................................................................................... [ACLs: 1]
  |     | o- iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:node1node2 .......................................................... [Mapped LUNs: 1]
  |     |   o- mapped_lun0 ..................................................................... [lun0 block/scsi_disk1_server (rw)]
  |     o- luns .......................................................................................................... [LUNs: 1]
  |     | o- lun0 ............................................................... [block/scsi_disk1_server (/dev/vg_iscsi/lv_iscsi)]
  |     o- portals .................................................................................................... [Portals: 1]
  |       o- 0.0.0.0:3260 ..................................................................................................... [OK]
  o- loopback ......................................................................................................... [Targets: 0]Save and exit from target CLI.
/> saveconfig
Last 10 configs saved in /etc/target/backup.
Configuration saved to /etc/target/saveconfig.json
/> exit
Global pref auto_save_on_exit=true
Last 10 configs saved in /etc/target/backup.
Configuration saved to /etc/target/saveconfig.json

Enable and restart the target service.

[root@server ~]# systemctl enable target.service
[root@server ~]# systemctl restart target.service

Configure the firewall to allow iSCSI traffic.

[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3260/tcp
[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --reload

Configure Initiator

Now, it’s the time to configure a client machine to use the created target as storage. Install the below package on the client machine (node1).

[root@node1 ~]# yum install iscsi-initiator-utils -y

Edit the initiatorname.iscsi file.

[root@node1 ~]# vi /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi

Add the iSCSI initiator name.

InitiatorName=iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:node1node2

Discover the target using the below command.

[root@node1 ~]# iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p 192.168.12.20

Output:

 192.168.12.20:3260,1 iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1

Restart and enable the initiator service.

[root@node1 ~]# systemctl restart iscsid.service
[root@node1 ~]# systemctl enable iscsid.service

Login to the discovered target.

[root@node1 ~]# iscsiadm -m node -T iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1 -p 192.168.12.20 -l

Output:

Logging in to [iface: default, target: iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1, portal: 192.168.12.20,3260] (multiple)
Login to [iface: default, target: iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1, portal: 192.168.12.20,3260] successful.

Create File System on ISCSI Disk

After login (connecting) to discovered target, have a look at messages file. You would find similar output like below, from where you can find a name of the disk.

[root@node1 ~]# cat /var/log/messages
Feb 23 14:54:47 node2 kernel: sd 34:0:0:0: [sdb] 10477568 512-byte logical blocks: (5.36 GB/4.99 GiB)
Feb 23 14:54:47 node2 kernel: sd 34:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Feb 23 14:54:47 node2 kernel: sd 34:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Feb 23 14:54:48 node2 kernel: sdb: unknown partition table
Feb 23 14:54:48 node2 kernel: sd 34:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

Output:

Feb 23 14:54:48 node2 iscsid: Could not set session2 priority. READ/WRITE throughout and latency could be affected.
Feb 23 14:54:48 node2 iscsid: Connection2:0 to [target: iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1, portal: 192.168.12.20,3260] through [iface: default] is operational now

List down the attached disks.

[root@node1 ~]# cat /proc/partitions

Output:

major minor  #blocks  name

   8        0  104857600 sda
   8        1     512000 sda1
   8        2  104344576 sda2
  11        0    1048575 sr0
 253        0    2113536 dm-0
 253        1   52428800 dm-1
 253        2   49799168 dm-2
   8       16    5238784 sdb

Format the new disk (for the sake of article, I have formatted whole disk instead of creating partition)

root@node1 ~]# mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb

Output:

meta-data=/dev/sdb               isize=256    agcount=8, agsize=163712 blks
         =                       sectsz=512   attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=1309696, imaxpct=25
         =                       sunit=0      swidth=0 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0 ftype=0
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=2560, version=2
         =                       sectsz=512   sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0

Mount the disk.

[root@node1 ~]# mount /dev/sdb /mnt

Verify the disk is mounted using the below command.

[root@node1 ~]# df -hT

Output:

Filesystem              Type      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/centos-root xfs        50G  955M   50G   2% /
devtmpfs                devtmpfs  908M     0  908M   0% /dev
tmpfs                   tmpfs     914M   54M  861M   6% /dev/shm
tmpfs                   tmpfs     914M  8.5M  905M   1% /run
tmpfs                   tmpfs     914M     0  914M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/centos-home xfs        48G   33M   48G   1% /home
/dev/sda1               xfs       497M   97M  401M  20% /boot
/dev/sdb                xfs       5.0G   33M  5.0G   1% /mnt

Automount iSCSI storage

To automount the iSCSI storage during every reboot, you would need to make an entry in /etc/fstab file.

Before updating the /etc/fstab file, get the UUID of the iSCSI disk using the following command. Replace /dev/sdb with your iSCSI disk name.

blkid /dev/sdb

Output:

/dev/sdb: LABEL="/" UUID="9df472f4-1b0f-41c0-a6eb-89574d2caee3" TYPE="xfs"

Now, edit the /etc/fstab file.

vi /etc/fstab

Make an entry something like below.

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Tue Jan 30 02:14:21 2018
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info
#
UUID=9df472f4-1b0f-41c0-a6eb-89574d2caee3 /                       xfs     defaults        0 0
UUID=c7469f92-75ec-48ac-b42d-d5b89ab75b39 /mnt                    xfs     _netdev         0 0

Remove iSCSI storage

In case you want to de-attach the added disk, please follow the procedure (unmount and logout).

[root@node1 ~]# umount /mnt/
[root@node1 ~]# iscsiadm -m node -T iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1 -p 192.168.12.20 -u

Output:

Logging out of session [sid: 1, target: iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1, portal: 192.168.12.20,3260]
Logout of [sid: 1, target: iqn.2016-02.local.itzgeek.server:disk1, portal: 192.168.12.20,3260] successful.

That’s All.

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