Zetavault

Instructions for using Zetavault storage systems

SAN

The SAN mode is probably the most flexible option, allowing creation of storage volumes that can be used via ISCSI and other related protocols by VMs that then present them via SMB, NFS, cloud, backup etc..

Creating and presenting volumes

Enable in the web UI by visiting Settings > SAN and clicking Enable ISCSI. Press Update bottom left and then visit Services > SAN and press Start SAN.

Create a volume to allocate to a SAN target in ZFS > Volumes; testing indicates a 16k volblocksize "Block Size" of 16k is more space efficient than the default 8k. Next in Services > SAN > Devices add a device, click ZFS, select the volume you just created and click Add.

To help prevent the SAN pool from becoming full via "overhead", never allocate more than 90% of the pool size to volumes or filesystems. In addition consider creating a small "reserve" volume that can be deleted to aid in volume recovery in the event of the SAN filling.

Once the volume is created, click Add to SAN for the newly created volume, leaving the default settings In Services > SAN > Targets

Add a target with a target name and alias to suit (they can be the same), and select a portal as needed (this can be a useful way to load balance or limit the presentation of storage to a specific subnet).

Then in Services > SAN > Users

Add user if needed (i.e. if not already available in UI)

Choose iSCSI

Enter a useful referential alias.

Enter the iSCSI IQN of the machine that needs access as the user name. This can be found on a given Linux machine with iSCSI installed in

/etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi

In Services > SAN > Groups

Add group.

Add Target created earlier, click add.

Then click Users for the newly created Group, and add the user created earlier (or pre-existing one, as needed)

Then click Devices and select the device you just created from Available Devices list. user created in last step.

Add device.

A "Reload SAN configuration" button should be visible top right of the UI. Press it.

iSCSI volume should now be available.

Deleting volumes

Volume deletion is essentially a reversal of the above process. You can't delete a volume in use by a device, can't delete a device assigned to a group, can't remove a device from a group that's in use by a user, etc.. You don't have to delete the user from the system, but they must be removed from the group. So:

• umount the volume on the server and log out of the iscsi session
• delete the device from the left tabset (this doesn't delete the volume), then;
• remove it from the group;
• then delete the device from the right tabset
• and finally destroy the volume from Zfs -> Datasets

If using multiple LUNs you ahve to remove them all to remove LUN0 etc., but can re-add the later LUNs once LUN0 is removed. No ISCSI session can be "live" when removing devices (groups, users...).

NB the actual storage deletion takes a long time More specifically the deletion is "confirm"; done. But freeing the space to be allocated to a new, or to expand an existing, volume (the most common reasons for deleting volumes), takes time. Hours rather than minutes.

Deleting groups and targets

Deleting groups and targets is a similar process to removing a volume. First delete item from the left tabset, then from the group, and eventually the group and the target can be removed from the right tabset.

Connecting a client machine to the volume

To connect a client, see ISCSI

Expand Volume

First, at VM/server level, unmount the volume and logout the iscsi connection to the volume.

On zetavault interface go to ZFS -> Datasets at the Volumes section and at the end of the row click the blue triangle/arrow to edit it. Edit Size and Reserv. Click Update and wait.

Now go to Services -> SAN and press Reload SAN Configuration. Note: this can be done even when there are other volumes in use.

After this you can go back to the VM/server, login the iscsi connection and start to expand it at server level as well. This page provides a few ways how to do that, but it might be different depending on the setup of that server.