Zetavault

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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

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 delete the device from the left tabset (this doesn't delete the volume), then remove it from the group. 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.

Connecting a client machine to the volume

To connect a client, see ISCSI