sanboot iscsi fails. Any idea why?

[ingestre]

I've been knocking my head against a sanboot iscsi issue which I'm struggling to resolve. Perhaps one of you fine technical people could shed some light?

I have a FreeNAS server which is presenting an ISCSI target quite happily. I can attach this as a second drive to my existing machines. What I'm trying to do now is get a machine to boot off it.

The source installation is a Windows XP box with Microsoft ISCSI initiator installed, as well as the sanbootconf.msi iscsi boot support

I've used Clonezilla to image my source installation onto the iscsi target (disk to disk imaging, including the MBR)

I then boot into the iPXE environment (I use pxelinux to boot the iPXE ISO image, hitting CTRL-B to get the shell)
I run "dhcp" to get the network interface configured
I then run the following sanboot command

sanboot iscsi:192.168.0.5::::iqn.2011-03.org.example.istgt:thinclient

I get a couple of messages saying that the iscsi target has attached as drive 0x80 and that iPXE is trying to boot off it. At this point the machine appears to lock up, and a reboot is the only option.

Has anybody got any idea what the problem is? I fully accept that I may have done something dumb here - I'm just getting started with iPXE / iSCSI and have a lot to learn!

[mcb30]

(2014-06-16 10:20)ingestre Wrote:  I get a couple of messages saying that the iscsi target has attached as drive 0x80 and that iPXE is trying to boot off it. At this point the machine appears to lock up, and a reboot is the only option.

Has anybody got any idea what the problem is? I fully accept that I may have done something dumb here - I'm just getting started with iPXE / iSCSI and have a lot to learn!

You could try using wireshark to observe how much iSCSI activity there is. That would give you some idea of whether or not the system is still alive.

Is the iSCSI-booting hardware identical to the hardware on which the image was prepared? Windows XP generally doesn't like being moved onto different hardware.

Michael

[ingestre]

The hardware being booted is identical - In fact it's the same machine! I booted it into Clonezilla to image its local drive to the iscsi target.

I'm using a Mikrotik routerboard (brilliant router!) as the router between initiator and target so I guess I could use the packet sniffing capabilites in that to ascertain iSCSI activity on port 3260?. How do I interpret any packets captured?

[mcb30]

(2014-06-17 18:22)ingestre Wrote:  The hardware being booted is identical - In fact it's the same machine! I booted it into Clonezilla to image its local drive to the iscsi target.

OK; that should work.

Quote:I'm using a Mikrotik routerboard (brilliant router!) as the router between initiator and target so I guess I could use the packet sniffing capabilites in that to ascertain iSCSI activity on port 3260?. How do I interpret any packets captured?

Mainly you just want to see if there is any activity, which would indicate that the initiator is still alive and doing something.

What is the last thing that you see on the screen?

If you add a Windows boot menu (i.e. a second entry in C:\boot.ini), does the menu show up? That would indicate that NTLDR is able to start up and access the disk, at least.

Michael

[ingestre]

You've cracked it! There was iscsi activity so I focussed instead on the partition image that I created.

The method I was using was to to image the drive, and then expand the partition to fill the iscsi target being presented. I then did a partition to partition copy.
This led to the boot process locking, with the last thing being seen was the iPXE message stating that it was attempting to san boot from the target.

I reimaged the drive but left out the partition to partition copy as a test. It booted into XP - Success! I still have a couple of issues. Minor but annoying.
1) The booted drive is the same size as the original. I'd like to be able to expand it to fill the iscsi target somehow.
2) booted drive now appears as drive D, with the original disk still being loaded as drive C - suspect I need to disconnect the original drive for the iSCSI target to appear as C:

I realise that these issues are with the Windows boot rather than the iPXE code, and are therefore out of scope for this forum. That being said, if anybody has any helpful suggestions I'd be most appreciative. You've been great so far!

[mcb30]

(2014-06-21 08:21)ingestre Wrote:  I reimaged the drive but left out the partition to partition copy as a test. It booted into XP - Success! I still have a couple of issues. Minor but annoying.
1) The booted drive is the same size as the original. I'd like to be able to expand it to fill the iscsi target somehow.
2) booted drive now appears as drive D, with the original disk still being loaded as drive C - suspect I need to disconnect the original drive for the iSCSI target to appear as C:

Glad you got it working!

I think WinXP should allow you to resize the partition that you have booted from. From memory, it's something like right-click on My Computer, choose Manage, browse to the bit about disks, right-click on partition, and choose the option which looks like Resize. It's been a long time since I tried this; my recollection may be inaccurate.

You should definitely disconnect the original disk.

Michael