Good Afternoon, I have a standalone vanilla ESX host 10.0.3.5 connecting directly via ISCSI to Netgear NVX storage 10.0.3.1. (Seperate network)I just can't make the ISCSI connection stable, it continually temporarily drops the ISCSI connection before automatically re-connecting a few seconds or minutes later.I have logged multiple calls with VMWARE and they assure me the Netgear NVX device is faulty? Things I have tried to resolve this issue with no success: NVX Firmware Upgrade (Raidiator now 4.2.17)Replaced the entire ESX Host with another DL380 G5 serverTried different ISCSI ethernet cables Cat 5, 5e, 6, 6eTried enabling "Access Control" on NVX with servers IQNTried adding Netgear GS108 gig switch between the ESX server and Netgear NVX

P.s It's a Netgear NVX Business edition with ISCSI support.

P.s.s. More things I've tried:Disabled Jumbo Packets.Set all VMware vswitches and windows servers(guest OS) to use MTU size 9000 (Default)

I would suggest you open a tech support case (see Online Submission link in my sig) and post your case number (preferably editing the title of the thread i.e. the title of the first post). Between tech support and the forum you should get good help to discover the cause of your problem.Please don't use Cat5 cabling. That's old junk unless you're not interested in using gigabit ethernet. Cat5e is the oldest ethernet cable you should consider using.An MTU of 9000 sounds like what you'd have with Jumbo Frames on, not off. An MTU of 1500 sounds more like what one would expect with Jumbo Frames disabled.Edit: You're using 4k sector disks, but your disks are not 4k sector aligned. This situation means you're likely experiencing terrible write performance to the NAS which is likely the cause of your problems. There was a Technical Bulletin about this a while back: http://www.readynas.com/?p=3690First I would suggest you backup your data.Then:Two options:Option i1. Run the "Disk Test" boot option: http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_use_the_boot_menu#nvx_nvx_pioneer_edition2. If all disks pass the disk tests then hot-remove (remove while NAS is on) one disk, wait a minute or two. Then hot-add the disk again. The disk should be wiped and re-added to your array3. Once your volume status is "redundant" again, repeat for the next diskOption ii1. Backup your data and verifying the backup is successful2. Do a System > Config Backup (keep the zip file that is downloaded. If it is extracted automatically you may find the zip file in the Recycle Bin)3. Do a factory reset, either via System > Update > Factory Default or via the boot menu: http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_use_the_boot_menu#nvx_nvx_pioneer_edition4. Restore Config Backup5. Restore data from backupOption ii is better. This will give you native EXT4 meaning you will be able to create iSCSI targets >2TB. I think VMWare may be limited to targets of 2TB in size (not sure about this, you should look into this), but if there is a limit currently this may change in the future.Once you've got 4k sector alignment if you still have issues further troubleshooting can be done.

Thanks for the quick response, I decided to go out drinking after my latest "Access Control" attempt failed, I meant to say earlier I set all the MTU packet limits to 1500 not 9000.I have second blank identical Netgear NVX business ready to take over, and the exact same WD drives so I assume I'll hit the same 4k alignment error, how do align a blank Netgear NVX business to use these drives? I can easily use VEEAM to replicate the VM across to the new NVX.

Reading your post again, all I have to do is factory reset my (Blank) NVX to fix the 4k error?

Vmware ISCSI Disconnecting | NETGEAR Communities

17 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion

mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Feb 06, 2012
Are you still using ESX 4? Or have you updated to ESXi 5?

For ESXi 5, 4.2.20 beta is needed: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=57193

Please also note that your disks are not on the Hard Disk HCL. You have the WD20EARS-00MVWB0. The one on the compatibility list is the WD20EARS-00S8B1.
mcoverdale
Aspirant
Feb 06, 2012
I am running Vmware ESX 4.1.

I will look at purchasing new drives now, thanks for your recommendation.
mcoverdale
Aspirant
Feb 07, 2012
Update:

I noticed that it was always one particular iScsi (LUN) target which would drop first then the other two would follow.

I have one VM on each iScsi target, so I turned my efforts towards the offending VM, it was a Windows 2003 x86 server running a legacy exchange install with no mailbox's on it anymore. I noticed the overall performance of this server was sluggish.

So I loading the latest VMTools and reconfiguring the Memory from 2GB to 3GB, I also ran defrag on the disks. Now the performance of the virtual host has dramatically increased and my iScsi dropout has also totally stopped. I've been iScsi dropout clean for around 20 Hours.

At this point I'm totally convinced the ReadyNAS is absolutely no way to blame in this case, I'm back to loving these devices. I will swap over the HDD drives eventually to comply with the HCL. Thanks for your assistance.
mcoverdale
Aspirant
Feb 08, 2012
Dear Diary,

The Vmware vSphere 4.1 server has started to disconnect from the ReadyNAS iScsi volumes again today.

The system log has this:

Feb 8 11:08:25 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:08:32 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:08:32 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:08:32 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:08:32 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:27 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:27 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:27 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:27 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:33 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:33 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:33 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:38:33 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:48:14 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 0 -> MAPPED LUN: 0 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:48:14 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 0 -> MAPPED LUN: 0 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:31 NASTWO kernel: Decremented iSCSI connection count to 0 from node: iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:host-25446e44
Feb 8 11:57:31 NASTWO kernel: TARGET_CORE[iSCSI]: Deregistered fabric_sess
Feb 8 11:57:31 NASTWO kernel: Released iSCSI session from node: iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:host-25446e44
Feb 8 11:57:31 NASTWO kernel: Decremented number of active iSCSI Sessions on iSCSI TPG: 1 to 0
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: Received iSCSI login request from 10.0.3.2 on TCP Network Portal 10.0.3.3:3260
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: Located Storage Object: iqn.2011-06.NASTWO:nastwo
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: Located Portal Group Object: 1
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: HeaderDigest: None
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: DataDigest: None
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: MaxRecvDataSegmentLength: 131072
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: IFMarker: No
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: OFMarker: No
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: MaxConnections: 1
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: TargetName: iqn.2011-06.NASTWO:nastwo
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: InitiatorName: iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:host-25446e44
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: TargetAlias: LIO Target
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: TargetPortalGroupTag: 1
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: InitialR2T: Yes
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: ImmediateData: Yes
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: MaxBurstLength: 262144
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: FirstBurstLength: 65536
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: DefaultTime2Wait: 2
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: DefaultTime2Retain: 0
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: MaxOutstandingR2T: 1
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: DataPDUInOrder: Yes
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: DataSequenceInOrder: Yes
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: ErrorRecoveryLevel: 0
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: SessionType: Normal
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: ------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: TARGET_CORE[iSCSI]: Registered fabric_sess_ptr: eb44fc80
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: iSCSI Login successful on CID: 0 from 10.0.3.2 to 10.0.3.3:3260,1
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: Incremented iSCSI Connection count to 1 from node: iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:host-25446e44
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: Established iSCSI session from node: iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:host-25446e44
Feb 8 11:57:34 NASTWO kernel: Incremented number of active iSCSI sessions to 1 on iSCSI Target Portal Group: 1
Feb 8 11:57:35 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 2 -> MAPPED LUN: 2 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:35 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 0 -> MAPPED LUN: 0 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:35 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 2 -> MAPPED LUN: 2 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:35 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 0 -> MAPPED LUN: 0 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:39 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:39 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:39 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:39 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:45 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:45 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:45 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 11:57:45 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 12:08:28 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 12:08:28 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 12:08:28 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Reserved iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone
Feb 8 12:08:28 NASTWO kernel: SCSI-2 Released reservation for iSCSI LUN: 1 -> MAPPED LUN: 1 for iqn.everyone

Before I buy the new HDD drives, I've just uninstalled vCenter Server in case it somehow interferes with the ACL which I currently have set to disabled.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated?
mcoverdale
Aspirant
Feb 13, 2012
Update: Because I hate reading posts that never get finished! :)

I Purchased 4 brand new Black Cavier 2TB drives which are on the Netgear HCL.

I decided after my ongoing issues with ISCSI I would factory reset the ReadyNAS NVX and use a NFS share instead, on a isolated network, the followed article was helpful:

http://www.readynas.com/?p=3030#nfs
gavind
Aspirant
May 31, 2013
Hi buddy, the article won't load anymore. Was it removed by any chance?
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
May 31, 2013
You can grab it here: http://web.archive.org/web/201203140103 ... om/?p=3030

Netgear removed a bunch of old links fairly recently, which is regrettable since many of them are still useful for legacy system owners.

Forum Discussion

Vmware ISCSI Disconnecting

17 Replies

Related Content

ReadyNAS 4220 - NFS vs. iSCSI - VMware

iSCSI LUN block size

M4300 VMware VLANS

Nighthawk CAX80 Intermittent internet disconnections

Random disconnects.

NETGEAR Academy

ProSupport for Business