ISCSI Booting Win2k8R2 on UCS with EqualLogic

We've been testing iSCSI booting on UCS with 2.0(1t) and the Palo M81KR with an EqualLogic PS6010. We are connecting through a 10GbE switch via an uplink port. However, we've hit a snag and want to see if anyone else has gotten around this.
The EQL shows connections from UCS when booting; however, Windows does not have the Palo drivers and doesn't show the target disk. When adding the M81KR driver, the connection gets dropped so Windows still does not show the target disk.
We've tried connecting the array directly to an appliance port on the FI but got some ENM source pinning failed error, a different issue at this point.
We've also tried slipstreaming all UCS drivers into the Windows media but that doesn't let us proceed either.
We've gotten RHEL6 to install so we know the configuration is viable.

Hello Thomas,
The EQL shows connections from UCS when booting; however, Windows does not have the Palo drivers and doesn't show the target disk. When adding the M81KR driver, the connection gets dropped so Windows still does not show the target disk.
There is small trick to make the target disks visible after installing the right drivers. Please make sure that after re-mapping the W2K8 ISO image, click Refresh button on the Installer screen and verify the outcome.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/b/os/windows/install/2008-vmedia-install.html#wp1059547
Driver location in driver ISO image
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/b/os/windows/install/drivers-app.html#wp1014709
Padma

Similar Messages

UC on UCS with iSCSI

Hi,
I was wondering if there is any update regarding UC on UCS support for booting from iSCSI SAN?
I would like to implement the follwoing scenario: B-Series Chassis with an ESX 5.1 B200M3 Server which hosts UC Apps (UCSM 2.1).
Could we boot that server from iSCSI SAN (network running 10Gb, no-drop QoS policy for boot vNICs)?
According to the link below, only FC SAN is supported, is that still correct? Is this feature enhancement on the roadmap?
http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/UC_Virtualization_Supported_Hardware#Storage
Thanks!
Dmitri

Hello Dmitri,
UCS servers supports iSCSI boot for ESXi.
Please check here for minimum HW / SW requirements
https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-18756
HCL - HW / SW / FW Matrix
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10477/prod_technical_reference_list.html
UCSM config guide
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10281/products_installation_and_configuration_guides_list.html
Padma

ISCSI boot with Intel NICs added to windows 2008 r2 routing table causes non iscsi traffic to attempt default routes on iscsi networks

I have a server with Intel 82576 Gigabit Dual Port Nics. I have configured them to use iSCSI boot the primary looks to 10.0.0.1/24 and the secondary looks to 10.0.1.1/24. The target is configured correctly. Everything boots as expected.
I have added the MPIO feature and configured MPIO for the iscsi initiator as per: http://blogs.technet.com/b/migreene/archive/2009/08/29/3277914.aspx.
My issue is that the iSCSI networks show up in the routing table like so:
I did not configure a default route in the Intel setup utility:
I tried to explicitly remove the 0.0.0.0 entry and leave blank, with no change. As you can see with the above routing table traffic attempts to travel over these routes:
C:\Users\Administrator>ping google.com
Pinging google.com [209.85.145.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 10.0.0.201: Destination host unreachable.
Reply from 10.0.1.201: Destination host unreachable.
Reply from 209.85.145.99: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=51
Reply from 209.85.145.99: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=51
Ping statistics for 209.85.145.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
A ping to the outside world first attempts on 10.0.0.x/24 network, then on 10.0.1.x/24 network and then finally on the network the traffic should go over. I don't want my iSCSI traffic to ever show up with a default route. How do I get rid of it?
route delete 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 "on-link" results in: The route deletion failed: The parameter is incorrect.
route delete 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 on-link results in: The route deletion failed: The parameter is incorrect.
route delete 0.0.0.0 deletes all default routes, then I have to add back in the "valid default route" of 192.168.100.6.
I would like to not have to do a route delete though.

So I've sort of given up on fixing the gateway assignment in the route for iSCSI boot. I configured a DHCP server to give out the information required by iSCSI boot and configured the network cards to use DHCP for their configuration. I insured
that my DHCP server gave out no default gateway entry. However, I still got the undesired routes in the routing table. This makes me assume that there isn't a "fix" for it, only the workaround.
Here is the script I run on each iSCSI Boot initiator (you would obviously change the ip number to suit your environment):
@Echo off
Rem fixes iscsi route problem as shown below:
Rem IPv4 Route Table
REM ===========================================================================
REM Active Routes:
REM Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
REM 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 On-link 10.0.0.200 10255
REM 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 On-link 10.0.1.200 266
REM 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.100.6 192.168.100.98 266
REM The top 2 lines are on the iscsi interface and traffic tries to go out it
REM We need to delete the routes, so we'll just delete all gateway routes and
REM add back in the one we care about.
route delete 0.0.0.0 >c:\iscsibootroutefix.log
route -p add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 192.168.100.6 >>c:\iscsibootroutefix.log
After running it I get:
IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.100.6 192.168.100.98 11
10.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 On-link 10.0.0.200 10255
10.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 On-link 10.0.0.200 10255
10.0.0.200 255.255.255.255 On-link 10.0.0.200 10255
Then I added a task in “task scheduler” of "administrative tools" that ran as the user “system” “when the computer starts” that runs this script.

Windows 2008 R2 iSCSI Boot LUN - NIC driver issue

Hello,
I've gotten the opportunity to create a win2k8r2 golden image that will be deployed to IBM3650 M3's over
iSCSI boot LUNs. I have a need to update the on-board Broadcom 1Gb NICs from the drivers that come with the installation media. I am able to load the drivers that I need without any issue, the system survives multiple re-boots and displays the expected driver
version via device manager. After I prepare the image I run sysprep, sysprep runs smoothly and the system shuts down as expected. At this point I unmap the existing LUN and clone the sysprep'ed image out.
This is where I run into trouble, if I update to the latest Broadcom driver the OS fails to boot, the host
logs into the LUN successfully and I get the Windows splash screen after a bit the screen goes black and I get no response from windows at all. With this behavior I would generally expect that there is some issue with my unattend file but if I don't upgrade
the driver there are no problems, windows boots normally, and the post install process runs successfully. After some digging I saw that I might be running into KB974072. Just as the article suggested I inserted the necessary drivers into the installation
media. Unfortunately this produced the same result.
I've got PersistAllDeviceInstalls set to "true" in the generalize pass of the unattend so sysprep
should not be making any changes to the drivers. If anyone has any ideas on what else, if anything, I can put in the unattend to get sysprep to leave the drivers alone or any thoughts on this issue at all I would greatly appreciate it!
Regards,
Toll_Hou5e

Hi,
First, try to set the registry key before capture the image.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Sysprep\Settings\sppnp set
PersistAllDeviceInstalls to
1.
If it doesn’t work, we can try another to way, inject driver packet during installation.
Managing and Deploying Driver Packages
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd348456(v=ws.10).aspx
Hope this helps.

Windows 7 answer file deployment and iscsi boot

Hi, I am trying to prepare an image with windows7 Ent that has been installed, went through "audit" and then shutdown with:
OOBE+Generalize+Shutdown
So that I can clone this image and the next time it boots, it will use answer file to customize, join domain etc.
The complication to this - is that I am using iscsi boot for my image, and working within Vmware ESX.
I can install Windows without any issues, get the drivers properly working, reboot and OOBE on the same machine - no issues.
The problems come when I clone the VM and the only part that changes (that I think really matters) is the mac address of the network card. The new clone when it comes up after the OOBE reboot hangs for about 10min and then proceeds without joining to domain.
Using Panter logs and network traces - I saw that the domain join command was timing out and in fact no traffic was being sent to the DC. So the network was not up. The rest of the answer file customization works fine.
As a test I brought up this new clone (with new mac) in Audit mode - and Windows reported that it found and installed drivers for new device - VMXNET3 Driver 2. So in fact it does consider this a new device.
Even though it iscsi boots from this new network card - later in process its unable to use it until driver is reinstalled.
In my answer file I tried with and without below portion but it didnt help:
<settings pass="generalize">
<component>
<DoNotCleanUpNonPresentDevices>true</DoNotCleanUpNonPresentDevices>
<PersistAllDeviceInstalls>true</PersistAllDeviceInstalls>
</component>
</settings>
I also tried with E1000 NIC, but couldnt get windows to boot properly after the cdrom installation part.
So my question - is my only option to use workarounds like post OOBE scripts for join etc?
Is it possible to let Windows boot and then initiate an extra reboot once the driver was installed and then allow it to go to Customize phase?
thank you!

Hi,
This might be caused by the iscsi boot.
iSCSI Boot is supported only on Windows Server. Client versions of Windows, such as Windows Vista® or Windows 7, are not supported.
Detailed information, please check:
About iSCSI Boot
Best regards
Michael Shao
TechNet Community Support

ISCSI boot support on vic P81e

Hi,
Is it supported to use P81e for iSCSI boot on C200M2?
Last time I know that it's not supported and there was saying that it's on roadmap. I can't seem to find the release notes for it.
If it's already supported, what version of c-series software do I need to use?
thanks

According to the support matrix, it's not supported.
http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/interoperability/matrix/r_hcl_B_rel2-21.pdf
my 2c
- even the VIC1225 doesn't show any iSCSI Boot support
- the VIC1225 is a prerequisite for single wire management, therefore I doubt, that there will be a lot of new driver development going on for P81e; Cisco PM please clarify !

Iscsi booting vmware

I am trying to setup a UCSB to boot esxi off an iSCSI drive. I have the iSCSI boot setup and it looks good, but when I boot ESXi, it does not show the iSCSI drive as available to install to. Any ideas where I should be looking?
Forgot to mention, its ESXi 5.5 and UCS 2.2.2c

Everything looks ok:
vnic iSCSI Configuration:
vnic_id: 17
link_state: Up
   Initiator Cfg:
   initiator_state: ISCSI_INITIATOR_READY
initiator_error_code: ISCSI_BOOT_NIC_NO_ERROR
vlan: 0
   dhcp status: false
   IQN: iqn.1992-08.cisco.com:2501
   IP Addr: 172.25.30.199
   Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
   Gateway: 172.25.30.1
Target Cfg:
Target Idx: 0
   State: ISCSI_TARGET_READY
Prev State: ISCSI_TARGET_DISABLED
Target Error: ISCSI_TARGET_NO_ERROR
   IQN: c240freenas.local:ucs
   IP Addr: 172.25.30.198
Port: 3260
Boot Lun: 0
Ping Stats: Success (12.127ms)
Session Info:
session_id: 0
   host_number: 0
bus_number: 0
   target_id: 0

Excited about iSCSI Boot in 2.0?

Having been booting from SAN and not always loving it, wondering how others feel about iSCSI boot in 2.0? To me this is a game changer. WAY EASIER.
Is anyone doing it? Feedback?
Craig

I've set it up for one customer and found it much harder to get working than FC boot, although it has worked perfectly since it was set up and now I know how to set it up would find it easier in future. The official documentation on getting it up and running is poor, although there is a very useful document posted in the documents section of the forum that does help. There is also a good guide in the partner website.
One major limitation is that you cannot use iSCSI boot when your service profiles are bound to a template as the iqn initiator value is not pooled. I will not be considering iSCSI boot for upcoming designs until this is resolved, although a change is planned I hear.
vSphere 5 is also not currently supported with iSCSI boot.
FInally there is a known issue listed in the release notes saying that the secondary iSCSI vnic cannot be used. Possibly a single point of failure concern.
So all in all, iSCSI boot is a welcome enhancement for me but still needs a bit of work to make it reay for prime time.

Boot Camp: Early 2011 MacBook Pro boots to black screen with blinking cursor after windows 7 installation.

I bought and downloaded the windows 7 ultimate edition 64 bit iso, then proceeded to perform a correct burn to a DVD one at the slowest speed and one at the fastest. all went well. so I open Boot Camp assistant and follow the instructions to the letter, downloaded the driver support to the flash drive. partitioned my drive with more than enough room 150 gb. its starts its install. I get through everything seamlessly where I put in my info all with the exception of my activation code. yet it still continues to finalize the install and does another restart. boots back up to either A. black screen saying press any key to boot to my install disk. B. if I take it out just a white curser. also I read it may be because I had the flash drive in while I was trying to boot so I removed it as well, same result. any input would be much appreciated.

Boot Camp- Windows installation boots to black screen with blinking cursor.

Dual booting S540 and linux with Secure Boot?

At some point I intend to install archlinux with dual boot on my Thinkpad S540 which currently runs Windows 8.1.
All the current advice about dual boot on UEFI machines seems to indicate that the way to go is to disable Secure Boot (and Fastboot) for Windows, and then do the linux install choosing a linux bootloader to allow booting either O/S. I believe I know the steps needed to do that.
Does anyone have any experience with dual booting Windows 8.1 and ArchLinux on the S540? I would like to retain Secure Boot for Windows, and in the ideal world have Secure Boot running for ArchLinux also. However Secure Boot is fraught with problems for Linux. There are a few distributions such as Ubuntu which will in principle support Secure Boot but I only use ArchLinux and want to install that particular flavour of linux on my machine. It is of course possible to keep switching Secure Boot on and off in the BIOS before booting either of the two installed operating systems but it would be neater and cleaner to have it all with Secure Boot on, or all with it off.
This is all very new stuff so there may well be a lot of problems, but it is worth exploring. I use rEFInd as my bootloader on another UEFI desktop computer to boot ArchLinux so I am familiar with that bootloader, but dual boot is another thing, and Secure Boot with the fast moving developments in that area is something that until now very few people have tinkered with.
Any replies and guidance/suggestions appreciated.

I'm guessing /boot can run from ntfs, however probably not as efficiently as if it were running on ext3/4. Mine runs on Ext4.
To add confusion, you only create one Extended partition, all partitions you create within the Extended partition are called Logical partitions. You should be able to create enough Logical partitions for your needs.
Primary/Extended partitions are normally sda1-4 and Logical partitions will usually start from sda5 on modern Sata HDD systems.
For /boot I would create a small 100mb Ext4 Logical partition. This partition cannot be inside LVM nor encrypted when using Grub1. I'm not familiar with Grub2.

Booting into 64bit mode with Mac Pro 2009

I am trying to boot into 64bit mode with a 2009 Mac Pro 2.93 Quad core machine. I tried holding down 6 and 4 when restarting but no luck, it staill says no in the profiler. Any ideas why?

If you'd like your Mac to always start up in 64 bit mode without having to hold down any keys, do this:
Here's the configuration file approach for always booting into 64-bit. This is the best way to make your Mac always start up 64 bit as the only thing necessary is to alter one line of a configuration file. You can do that by opening the Terminal and entering:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot 'Kernel Flags' 'arch=x86_64'
To return to 32 bit mode, you would repeat the command but enter an empty string, which would just be the single quotes (where arch=x86_64 is) with nothing in between.
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot 'Kernel Flags' ''
These commands are all one line, they're just wrapping here.
If at any point you find you need to start up in 32 bit mode for a single use, just as you held down the 6 and 4 keys for 64 bit, you can hold down the 3 and 2 keys for a temporary change. No need to keep changing the config file over and over.

Will only boot to a circle with a slash

MacBook Pro will only boot to the circle with a slash symbol. I have tried all the turn on hold C, X, Option key suggestions and have tried the clearing ideas (hold cntl, commmd, p, r). Have put the system disk in to boot from that, now I cannot get the disk out.
Any suggestions out there?

Your computer is not recognizing your hard drive. Plug a mouse in and hold the mouse key down when booting. The disc should eject. Next, make sure the disc is real clean with no finger prints or scratches on it. Then try booting from it again (by holding the "C" key down) when booting. See if your Disk Utility sees the drive and run that. If it does not, or the unit will not boot from the install disc, then you have a serious problem--possibly logic board-related. You could also try running DiskWarrior and see if that will boot and repair the drive.
Dave M.
MacOSG Founder/Ambassador  An Apple User Group  iTunes: MacOSG

Prblem with iSCSI on Win Server 2012R2 with HyperV role

Hi all,
I have some problems with iSCSI on Win server. The problem is the following.
When I restart server it cannot find the path with VMs configuration and VMs can't start. After few minutes all problems are gone and HyperV can find everything but I must start VMs manually.
The server is DELL R710 with Broadcom NICs. I tried to configure LAN interfaces for iSCSI in two ways. First - from OS and second - from Broadcom BACS with disabled NDIS/Ethernet and enabled iSCSI. The results are the same.
I have two more servers connected to the storage in the same way and everything is fine there.
Events are following:
1. Source MSiSCSI. ID 108
Status 0x00001069 determining that device interface \\?\{8e7bd593-6e6c-4c52-86a6-77175494dd8e}#MsVhdHba#1&3030e83&0&01#{2accfe60-c130-11d2-b082-00a0c91efb8b} does not support iSCSI WMI interfaces. If this device is not an iSCSI HBA then this error
can be ignored.
2. Source bxois. ID 1
Initiator failed to connect to the target. Target IP address and TCP Port number are given in dump data.
3. Source MSiSCSI. ID 113
iSCSI discovery via SendTargets failed with error code 0xefff0003 to target portal *10.10.45.36 0003260 B06BDRV\L4SC&PCI_163914E4&SUBSYS_02351028&REV_20\5&2457021e&0&30050200_0 10.10.45.37.
4. Source Hyper-V-Config. ID 4096
The Virtual Machines configuration 72D1CB1A-A7E3-425A-A709-DA9F6BF0E1A9 at 'I:\VM\exch01-t' is no longer accessible: The system cannot find the path specified. (0x80070003).
5. Source SMagent. ID 1
Message from SM agent service: SMagent: The SMagent service attempted to start but terminated. Possible causes include: [1] The access virtual disk is disabled in NVSRAM. [2] No RAID controller modules with compatible firmware were found. [3] The default
logical unit number (LUN) assigned to the access virtual disk (typically 7 or 31) is not in the range supported by the host or is already in use by the host for another device. See your storage management documentation for more details.
The Host Context Agent did NOT start because 0 RAID controller modules were found.


Hi Sergey,
>>When I restart server it cannot find the path with VMs configuration and VMs can't start. After few minutes all problems are gone and HyperV can find everything but I must start VMs manually.
As a workaround you can set the "startup delay" for VMs .
>>Initiator failed to connect to the target. Target IP address and TCP Port number are given in dump data.
The possible cause may be the network stack is not fully prepared when the initiator was trying to connect to persistent targets. The initiator will try to connect. When the network stack is fully prepared, the connection should be successfully established.
If you receive this error when the iSCSI target device that is listed on the
Favorite Targets tab no longer exists, you can resolve this issue by removing the iSCSI target device from the list of favorite targets.
If you receive this error, and you cannot access an iSCSI target device that is still configured on the network, make sure that the client computer has network connectivity to the iSCSI target. Additionally, make sure that name resolution is working correctly.
If you have successfully connected to your iSCSI target device despite this error, it indicates that the connectivity issue was temporary. Therefore, you can safely ignore this Error event.
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/976072?wa=wsignin1.0
Best Regards
Elton JI
We
are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

Cannot boot into Safe Mode with Networking - Windows 8.1 Update

I'm trying to boot into safe mode with networking. I can successfully boot into Safe Mode, but my Network Access is always disabled.
I've tried msconfig / Click on Restart / Restart Now from the Update and Recovery menu in 'Change PC Settings'. They all eventually get me to the Same boot options menu which says ... F4 for Safe mode, F5 for Safe mode with Networking etc.. I
select the F5 Safe mode with Networking and it re-boots into Safe mode but I have no network access.
I'm connecting to my home ADSL, no proxy required. If I boot normally I have network & internet access, but in 'F5 Safe mode with Networking' my networking is disabled.
Windows 8.1 Pro x64

I can see that I am actually connected to my router, but the network icon still shows as disconnected.
What about the Network list via the Settings charm (Win-I)? Last week I was having problems with that one after long sleeps. Later I realized that although I could see the icon in the Settings charm (as normal) when I clicked on it, it still
showed the same icon as I was expecting; the difference is that it didn't show "Connected"; so, clicking on the icon proved that it was offering a Connect button and clicking that finally got me connected. Meanwhile the troubleshooters were misleading
at best and destructive at worst, suggesting I power things off, etc. I don't know if there was a fix for this specific symptom or whether I just tried a different path but yesterday instead of trying the above procedure I tried to see what the Network
troubleshooter associated with IE's "unable to connect" page would do; amazingly it identified the problem precisely. That connection had somehow acquired a connect manually attribute. The troubleshooter offered to fix that problem for me
and I accepted. Since then, no more problem.
FYI
Robert Aldwinckle

Gray screen after boot and blue screen with stripes

Hi, I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2011 with Mavericks (came with Snow Leopard).
History:
One day i was working and things were too slow. I tried to restart but it was taking too long to close all the programs. So I forced shut down by holding the power button. When I turned it on again, my problems begin.
Problem:
The Apple logo and the spinning wheel appear. After a while, both disappear and it freezes at gray screen. Some solutions I tried make the screen goes blue with black vertical stripes. In both cases, I have to force shut down.
Solutions I tried:
- Reset NVRAM
     It does reset, but nothing change
- Log in my Windows partition. I can't log
- Hold option key and choose recovery. Blue screen
- Recovery system by restart and press Command-R. Blue Screen.
- Safe boot by pressing Shift. Blue Screen
- Verbose by pressing Command-V. Restart and gray screen again.
- Single-user mode by pressing Command-S
     Tried to reapair hard drive:
          /sbin/fsck –fy
     Returns the message "** The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.". I restart and nothing change.
     Tried to change startup permissions:
          mount -uw /
          chown root /
          chmod 1775 /
          exit
     Restart and nothing change.
- Boot from a bootable USB flash drive
     Holding option key, I choose my flash drive with Ubuntu installed. It gives me 3 options: Use Ubuntu without installing, Install Ubuntu, Repair Disk      Errors (something like that). The 3 options go to the blue screen
     Flash drive with Mavericks. Blue screen.
-Boot from my Snow Leopard CD. Gray screen, restarting, gray screen.
I don't what else I can do. Is it a hardware problem? At first I thought it was some corrupted file. But is it a GPU or logic board problem? What else can I try?

I found this to work at least to get in and backup some files. It is VERY important to put these commands in EXACTLY as seen here, including spaces.
Boot into Single-User mode (Command-S while booting up)
Execute the following commands:
/sbin/fsck -fy /
/sbin/mount -uw /
mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .
mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .
touch /System/Library/Extensions
exit
I guess these two graphics extensions go bad quite often on Macbook Pro 15-inch. They are part of the logic board. The only problem I had was I still couldn't get into my computer any other way, and the graphics for Safari were messed up. Firefox was okay. Good Luck!
Here's the original thread:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/120507/boot-hangs-on-grey-screen-even-w hen-booting-from-usb-drive-with-fresh-os-x-inst

ISCSI Booting Win2k8R2 on UCS with EqualLogic

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for