cyborgworkshop.org

By default, when you enable iscsi sharing within zfs, the share is created and bound to all available ethernet interfaces. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if for some reason you can reach your iscsi share via two paths, you run the chance of sending iscsi traffic over a non optimized path and really messing with your performance. Fortunately, a way exists to bind iscsi to specific interfaces using interface groups.

First, we need to create the interface group. This is assuming that the IP 192.168.1.1 is the IP address that is assigned to the interface (or in the case of bound channels, multiple interfaces) that you want a specific share to use.

iscsitadm create tpgt
iscsitadm modify tpgt -i 192.168.1.1 1

A quick

iscsitadm list tpgt -v 1

Will let you know if this worked.

Now that your interface group is created, all you have to do is bind it to a specific share.

iscsitadm modify target -p 1 zpool/iscsiTarget

Done! This leaves open some interesting opportunities for using the same iscsi SAN to service connections on different networks in a relatively secure manner. Have fun!

ESXi 3.5 only allows 4 virtual NICs to be assigned to a virtual machine. For many uses, that’s just fine, but my latest overly complex home network requires for 5 wireless network, 3 wired networks, 2 storage networks and a public hotspot type network. That’s no less then 11 network interfaces. Fortunately, I have the hardware to handle 802.1q vlans. Unfortunately, vmware doesn’t seem to like passing 802.1q headers through the vmnics and into the outside world. I spent a fair amount of time with a sniffer trying to figure this situation out and came across a white paper that saved my bacon. When you create a virtual interface in the VI Client, you have to set it to use vlan 4095 if you plan on using it as a pass-thru trunk interface. If you don’t, none shall pass. How frustrating is that?
Hey VMWare, consider this a feature request. How about a flipping check box labeled “Pass-Thru Interface” instead of a white paper buried on under the interwebs?

update The latest ESXi configuration guide mentions this on page 30 http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3i_e/r35/vi3_35_25_3i_server_config.pdf