This is part 1 in a proof of concept serious involving the creation of a RAID 1 iSCSI Target using OpenFiler 2.13 and Vmware Server 2.  We will purposely fail one of the virtual disks in the array rebuild the array and verify the data.  In part one of the series we will create the Raid 1 array.  In subsequent parts we will create an ISCSI Target, connect Windows Vista using iSCSI Initiator and simulate RAID 1 drive failure and recovery.  The OpenFiler vmware appliance is free to download and use.  The installation of both Vmware Server 2 and OpenFiler 2.13 vmware appliance will not be covered here.

Create VMware virtual disks

From the VMware Server 2 web administration create two 50 MB disks for the OpenFiler VMware guest accepting the VMware defaults.

Create Raid Partitions

As seen in Figure 1, navigate to openfiler > Volumes > Block Devices and select the first of our newly created disks /dev/sdb.

FIGURE 1: opefiler > Volumes > Block Devices

Create a RAID array partition by selecting Partition Type: “RAID array member” for the entire cylinder range (default) and clicking “Create”.  See Figure 2.  The resulting RAID partition should like as seen in Figure 3.  Repeat the previous steps to create a RAID partition for /dev/sdc

FIGURE 2: opefiler > Volumes > Block Devices > /dev/sdb

FIGURE 3: openfiler > Volumes > Block Devices > /dev/sdb

Create New Raid 1 Array

Once the two raid devices have been created navigate to openfiler > Volumes > Software Raid as seen in Figure 4 below. Select RAID-1 from the drop down menu, leave the chunk size at default, select the two raid devices as seen in Figure 4 and click “Add array”.  The resulting raid array information will be displayed as seen in Figure 5.

Figure 4: openfiler > Volumes > Software Raid

Figure 5: openfiler > Volumes > Software Raid

Create New Volume Group

Navigate to openfiler > Volumes > Volume Groups and create the new volume group “volgroupraid001”.  If this is not your preferred volume group naming convention, change it to your liking.  After entering your “Volume group name”, select our newly created Raid 1 volume /dev/md0 and click “Add volume group” as seen in Figure 6.  The resulting Volume Group is displayed as seen in Figure 7.

Figure 6: openfile > Volumes > Volume Groups

Figure 7: openfiler > Volumes > Volume Groups

Create New Volume

Navigate to openfiler > Volume>Add Volume select our “volgroupraid001” volume group, enter the name our new volume “volraid001”, fill in a description, enter the Required Space” (32MB) and be sure to select the proper “Filesystem Type” of iSCSI.  Click “Create” when ready.  See Figure 8 below.  The resulting Volume Group will be as seen in Figure 9.

Figure 8: openfiler > Volume > Add Volume

Figure 9: openfiler > Volumes > Manager Volumes

In our next section we will create the OpenFiler iSCSI Target using our newly created RAID 1 volume.