iSCSI diskless boot, anyone?

Question

I have scoured the net, and I can't find anyone that's actually doing this! I'm starting to think it's hopeless, but I thought I'd try here just in case. Seems like everything is configured correctly, so I wonder if I’ve got some false assumptions about how it should work. Basically, I want to take a diskless server (R310), configure it for iSCSI boot via a compliant NIC, create a LUN for the OS on the EqualLogic, and then put a Server 2012 installation DVD into the drive, and install on this LUN. The problem I’m having is I don’t know how it should work, so I’m not sure where the issue is exactly. At this point, I’ve got the NIC configured to see a LUN on the SAN and it actually does try to boot to that LUN. Of course, the LUN is blank at this point. When I boot into the install disc for Hyper-V Server 2012, it doesn’t find any LUNs on the SAN, even after I load the driver. I’m not sure if this is because I’m giving it the wrong driver (I manually extracted the drivers from the cab from this page under Windows 2012) or if it just doesn’t work that way. Does anyone have any experience doing this?

Zerobubble · Accepted Answer

We booted from SAN for years. In order to boot from SAN using iSCSI we needed to have a physical iSCSI HBA in the server that con be configured to create the handshake during boot. We did the same vwith FC HBA's. The NIC's just don't have the firmware capability to establish an iSCSI connection prior to getting instruction from the drivers in the OS.

Good Luck.

jakesterpdx · Answer

Thanks, Don- So in theory, if I load the right driver during Windows setup, Windows will suddenly see the LUN on the SAN? -Jake

jakesterpdx · Answer

Thanks for the help, everyone. Unfortunately, I've run out of time to continue fiddling with this. It's a shame, but it seems like the lesser of two evils to go ahead and just buy a couple of drives for my server, rather than keep banging my head against this obnoxious problem.

EqualLogic

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