OpenFiler Server Installation
For more information on Openfiler Server, visit openfiler.com
Description:
Openfiler converts an industry standard x86_64 architecture system into a full-fledged NAS/SAN appliance or IP storage gateway and provides storage administrators with a powerful tool to cope with burgeoning storage needs. With a range of file-based and block-based storage export protocols, there is something in Openfiler for everyone. Openfiler provides both block-level and file-level storage networking capabilities. At the block-level, storage can be exported via:
- iSCSI
- Fibre Channel
- NFS
- CIFS
- HTTP/DAV
- FTP
- rsync
Pre-Requisites:
1. Hardware:
Hardware requirements of at least a single hard drive, preferably more, and if doing iSCSI a minimum on 2 NICs on separate VLANs or Subnets.
2. Download ISO:
Download the Openfiler ISO and mount the ISO to a VM, or burn the ISO to a disk, which will be used to install openfiler on a bare metal machine.
It is not recommended that iSCSI and normal network traffic ever be passed through the same subnet. Network performance network services can experience degradation due to the amount of traffic generated by iSCSI, as well as network outages caused by things such as broadcast storms can bring down the storage network. These 2 type of traffic should be separated in thier own VLANs if possible.
Installation:
1. Boot the ISO:
Boot into the Openfiler ISO disk, at which point you will be presented with the Openfiler Anaconda installer screen.
Press the Enter key to boot into the installer.
2. Load Installer:
Once the Anaconda installer loads, Press the Next button to start the installation process.
3. Select Language:
On the language selection screen, choose your language of choice, and then press the Next button.
4. Choose Installation Disk:
On the disk installation selection screen, choose your disk that you want openfiler installed on. If multiple disks are selected, then by default openfiler will spread the install across both disks. The OS will be installed on the primary for example, and the swap on the secondary. Once complete, press the Next button.
A dialog will pop up asking if you are sure that you want to remove all data from the installation disk.
Choose Yes to continue.
5. Choose Network Settings:
On the Network Devices screen, Click the Edit button to set the IP address for any interfaces. Then set the hostname, gateway, and DNS settings to complete the network configuration. Once complete, press the Next button.
6. Select Timezone:
On the Timezone screen, choose your local timezone and then press the Next button.
7. Set Password:
On the Password screen, type the root password, confirm, and then press the Next button.
8. Confirm Config:
On confirmation to begin installation screen press the Next button.
9. Reboot:
Once the installation has completed, press the Reboot button.
10. Gather GUI URL:
After the reboot, the screen will show that the server has booted, and that the web administration interface is now accessible via the https://xxx.xxx.xxx:446 URL from a browser.
Accessing the UI:
Open your web browser and go to the ip of the server.
https://10.79.0.180:446
username: openfiler
password: password
Configure Network Access:
1. Set Network ACLs:
Once logged into the Administration panel, click on system and at the bottom, create a Network Access Configuration entry for the subnet or hosts whose client initiators will connect to this target server.
Configure Physical Storage:
1. Set Block Devices:
From the systems view, click on Volumes in the top navbar to open the volumes view. In order to add physical disks, which essentially is assigning a partition to the physical disks, we need to go to the Block Devices section by clicking the link in the right side navigation menu.
2. Select Disk:
From the block device view, select the disk that you want to use to create a physical volume or partition for iscsi provisionable storage, and click the link under the Edit Disk column.__
3. Create Partition:
In the partition view, in the Create a partition section, create a new partition on the blank disk by leaving the mode set to primary, set the partition type to physical volume, set the starting and ending disk cylinders based on whats available in the disk space guide and click the create button to create the partition/physical volume.
Configure Volume Groups:
1. Create Volume Group:
Click on Volumes in the upper navigational menu, then click on the Volume Groups link on the right hand side of the screen. This will bring you to the Create a new volume group view, that will allow you to define a name for the new volume group, as well as select which physical volumes you would like to include in the volume group pool.
Configure Logical Volumes:
1. Create Logical Volume:
Click on Volumes in the upper navigational menu, then click on the Add Volume link on the right hand side of the screen. This will bring you to the Create a volume in volume group view, that will allow you to define a name, and select the size of the logical volume or LUN that you want to create. For the file systems selection choose block (iSCSI, FC, etc) as the file system type. This will create a raw storage block that will be presented to the server.
Raw block storage does not create a file system on the LUN. Once the server has procured and mounted the storage, from the servers host OS, the LUN will then be able to be partitioned, and formatted with whatever filesystem the server owner chooses on the server.
Configure iSCSI:
1. Start Services:
Click on Services in the upper navigational menu, From the list of available services, choose iSCSI Target and click the Enable link to enable the service capability, and then click on Start to start the target service.
2. Configure Target:
Click on Volumes in the upper navigational menu, then click on the iSCSI Targets link on the right hand side of the screen. This will bring you to the Target Configuration settings view. Click Add next to the default Target IQN. In the properties of the target, leave the default values and click update at the bottom of the view.
3. Set LUN Mapping:
From the Target Configuration section, click on the LUN Mapping tab. In this view we can assign the 2 LUNs or logical volumes that we created to the iSCSI target for distribution. Simply click on the Map button for each LUN you would like to assign to the iSCSI target.
The reason why this step exists is because openfiler would allow you to set up multiple iSCSI targets for different subnets, and if multiple target services are running, then assigning LUNs to the different targets would be how to determine which target serves which block of storage.
4. Set Network ACL:
From the LUN Mapping section, click on the Network ACL tab. In this view we can assign the subnets that we identified in the System menu, access to log in and procure storage from the iSCSI target. Choose the network subnet, or host address(s) that you want to give access to the target from, and click on the drop list Access column, choosing Allow as the access leve. Once complete, click the Update button.
Post Requisites:
None