How to mount an RPN SAN volume in VMware ESXi 7 and later

Reviewed on 12 August 2024 • Published on 10 November 2021

Important

Due to VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom, the free edition of VMware vSphere Hypervisor is no longer available on the VMware website. For more details, check out the EOL of free vSphere Hypervisor. Please note that the following content is provided as-is, without any guarantee of functionality. We suggest considering alternative hypervisors such as Proxmox. You can learn how to deploy virtual machines with Proxmox on Scaleway Dedibox.

Before you start

To complete the actions presented below, you must have:

A Dedibox account logged into the console
A Dedibox dedicated server
An RPN SAN

Important

This documentation covers VMware ESXi version 7 and later. Follow this link to see the documentation for ESXi 5.0/5.1/5.5 and 6.0.

How to configure VMware ESXi to use RPN

Enable SSH on your ESXi

Log into the ESXi web interface at https://YOUR_ESXI_HOST_IP.

Tip
Use the root user and the password set during installation of the machine to log in.

Once logged in, the ESXi dashboard displays.
Click Manage in the menu on the left. Then click the Services tab to display a list of available services.
Select TSM-SSH, then click Start to activate the SSH service.

Configure ESXi to access the RPN

Configuration in the ESXi interface

Connect to your Dedibox server by typing the server’s IP address in a web browser. The ESXi login displays. Enter your credentials to log in.
Click Actions > Services > Enable Secure Shell (SSH):

The following warning displays once SSH is enabled: SSH is enabled on this host. You should disable SSH unless it is necessary for administrative purposes. 3. Create a new Virtual Switch by clicking on Networking > Virtual Switches > Add Standard Virtual Switch. Configure it as shown in the following example:

Create a new VMkernel NIC by clicking on Networking > VMkernel NICs > Add VMkernel NIC and configure it as follows.

Note
Make sure to configure Jumboframes (MTU 9000) both for the switch and the NIC.
Connect to your server using SSH. The SSH credentials are identical to those for the web interface.

Locate the MAC address of the network card connected to the RPN (MTU 9000):

esxcfg-nics -l

Export the current VMkernel NIC configuration:

configstorecli config current get -c esx -g network -k vmknics > vmknics.json

Open the VMkernel NIC configuration file in a text editor:

vi vmknics.json

Replace the MAC address of your RPN VMkernel NIC with your virtual MAC.

Import the new configuration:

configstorecli config current set -c esx -g network -k vmknics -i vmknics.json --overwrite

Reboot the machine to activate the new configuration.

Setting RPN routes

Enter the ESXi web interface, click Networking > Virtual Switches > RPN Switch and check the IP address of the VMkernel NIC. It now has the RPN IP auto-assigned to the interface via DHCP:
Reactivte the SSH service and connect to the machine via SSH.
Run the following command to add the RPN route:
```
esxcfg-route -a 10.88.0.0/13 [YOUR_RPN_GATEWAY_IP]
```
Tip
You can find the RPN gateway either on your server’s overview page in the Dedibox console or by following this guide.

Ping the RPN-SAN to check if the RPN connection is working properly:

ping san-1.rpn.online.net

Open the file /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh in a text editor and add the following lines to it to configure the RPN route automatically during boot:

esxcfg-route -a 10.88.0.0/13 [YOUR_RPN_GATEWAY_IP]
exit 0

Connecting the RPN-SAN

To be able to communicate with the RPN-SAN, you need to allow your servers to access it.

Connect to the Dedibox console and click Storage > RPN-SAN.
Select the SAN you want to configure and click Manage.
Add the server(s) you want to access your SAN services to the list. Optionally you can add RPN subnet IPs.

Note
If you use RPNv2, an additional configuration is required to access the RPN-SAN.

Important
While it is technically possible, it is not recommended to allow more than one server at a time to communicate with the SAN. The iSCSI protocol does not handle concurrency: you may lose all your data if you allow more than one server to access this storage.
Click Save to validate the new configuration of the SAN.
Connect to the ESXi web interface of your server.
Click Storage > Adapters > Software iSCSI. A configuration pop-up displays.
Enable the service. Click Add port binding and add the RPN Network. Then click Add dynamic target and enter the address of your SAN. Then, click Save configuration:

ESXi rescans for devices, and you can see the new iSCSI disk in the Devices tab of the storage section.

Adding a new Datastore

To use the RPN-SAN with ESXi, you need to create a new datastore. To do so, follow these steps:

Connect to the ESXi web interface, then click Storage > Datastores > New Datastore.
Select Create new VMFS datastore and click Next.
Enter a name for the new datastore and select the RPN-SAN iSCSI disk from the list of available devices. Then click Next:
Configure the partitioning of the datastore. Then click Next. A summary displays.
Validate all given information and click Finish to format the device.
Important
Be careful, formatting the device deletes all data you may have stored on it.
The newly created datastore displays in the datastore list and is ready for use: