Create iSCSI Target in OpenFiler

If you have a SAN storage, or a dedicated server to serve as file and storage service to other server, I am suggesting you to use Openfiler. This operating system is specifically built to manage and deliver file-based Network Attached Storage and block-based Storage Area Networking in a single framework.

In this tutorial, I will not showing you on how to install Openfiler. I am just showing you on how to setup iSCSI target to be mounted in another server. Variables as follow:

OS: Openfiler 2.99 64bit
Openfiler IP: 10.1.1.1
Disk device: /dev/sdb
Disk size: 50 GB
Server that mount the iSCSI: 10.1.1.100

1. We start by reviewing the block drive layout which detected in the system. Login to the Openfiler web adminitration portal with default credentials as below:

Username: openfiler
Password: password

2. Make sure we turn on the iSCSI services and make it run. Go to Openfiler > Services and make sure it appear as below:

3.  Lets specify which host can connect to this storage server. So in this case, I want to allow 10.1.1.100 to access iSCSI target which we will create later. Go to Openfiler > System > Network Access Configuration and specify which host you want to allow:

4. We need to create physical volume for /dev/sdb. Go to Openfiler > Volumes > Block Devices, select information as screenshot below and click Create:

5. Create volume group for /dev/sdb1 by go to Openfiler > Volumes > Volumes Group.  I will put server1_vg as the name because I want to mount this in server1 once ready.

You should see something like this:

6. Create volume as ‘data‘ inside server1_vg volume group by go to Openfiler > Volumes > Add Volume. Make sure you select ‘block (iSCSI, FC, etc)‘ as the volume type:

7. Now we can do iSCSI mapping. Go to Openfiler > iSCSI Targets > LUN Mapping, and click Map.

8. Make sure we allow host access to this target. Go to Openfiler > iSCSI Targets > Network ACL, and allow which host you want to access to the target:

9. iSCSI target ready. Now you can connect them to any host you want and make sure you install the iSCSI initiator at the remote server.

Process summary will be as below:

1. Create physical volume
2. Create volume group
3. Create volume
4. Map volume with LUN
5. Allow hosts define in step 3
6. Mount into the destination server

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