From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 29 18:57:07 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF2B0C1C for ; Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:57:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dweimer@dweimer.net) Received: from webmail.dweimer.net (24-240-198-187.static.stls.mo.charter.com [24.240.198.187]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1DA6C8FD43 for ; Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:51:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: from www.dweimer.net (webmail.dweimer.net [192.168.5.1]) by webmail.dweimer.net (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q9TIpUbm016820 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:51:30 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dweimer@dweimer.net) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:51:30 -0500 From: dweimer To: Subject: Re: Freebsd iSCSI client =?UTF-8?Q?=3F?= Organization: dweimer.net Mail-Reply-To: In-Reply-To: <20121029132939.9540.qmail@joyce.lan> References: <20121029132939.9540.qmail@joyce.lan> Message-ID: X-Sender: dweimer@dweimer.net User-Agent: Roundcube Webmail/0.8.1 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: dweimer@dweimer.net List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:57:07 -0000 On 2012-10-29 08:29, John Levine wrote: > I'm trying to set up a freebsd image under vmware, but I need more > disk > space than the vmware hosts offer. So the guy who runs the hosting > place > suggests getting a 1U disk server and using iSCSI over gigabit > Ethernet > so I can build zfs volumes from the iSCSI disks. > > Poking around, the reports say that FreeBSD is a pretty good iSCSI > server in such forms as freenas, but a lousy iSCSI client, with the > first problem being that that kludges are required to get iSCSI > volumes mounted early enough in the boot process for ZFS to find > them. > Is this still the case in FreeBSD 9? > > I'd rather not use NFS, since the remote disks have mysql databases, > and mysql and NFS are not friends. > > An alternative is to mount the iSCSI under vmware, so zfs sees them > as > normal disks. Anyone tried that? > > TIA, > John I don't have an answer for you at the moment, but I can tell you that I just started a new server build this morning with the intent of using it as an iSCSI client and running ZFS on the drive. In my case however its going to be a file server that doesn't have very much heavy I/O, with the intention of using compression on the ZFS file set. In my case a script ran after start up to mount the drive would work if it fails. I will let you know what I find out, server is in the middle of a buildworld to get it updated to the p4 release. Yes you can mount as a drive through VMware and use ZFS just fine, I have done a lot of recent tests using ZFS as the boot volume under VMware. This new server will be my first production server to use what I have learned from those tests, as its system drive mounted through VMware (ESX 4.1) and is booting from ZFS. Once the install of the buildworld is complete I will add a 150G ZFS data set on our HP Lefthand Networks SAN, run some tests and let you know the outcome of them. -- Thanks, Dean E. Weimer http://www.dweimer.net/