Does FOG work with iSCSI?

[ManofValor]

@Tom-Elliott I’m trying to make my Buffalo Terastation my primary storage for my images. I’ve never dealt with NAS/NFS and of course I’m new to FOG, so I’m trying to figure out how to connect my NAS. A couple posts up I asked Wayne if that was how I do this and in the video it took me through the install of FOG again, though I think in the vid it was a fresh install. I hope I’m making sense.

[Tom Elliott]

@ManofValor The only thing you would need to do is edit the /opt/fog/.fogsettings file. Look for the storageLocation= variable in the file. Make whatever change is needed.

You would also need to update the node in the GUI to look at the same place as storageLocation and edit the /etc/exports file. After that, just reboot the server and all should be well.

It seems you’re overthinking things.

While following the info in the video is not a bad idea, understand that in IT you don’t have to everything exactly like shown. What they’re showing in most of those situations is how to start from “nothing” to get to “something”.

[Tom Elliott]

@ManofValor Mind you, you would not need to rerun the installer in “no-update” mode either.

[ManofValor]

@Tom-Elliott Thanks Tom. I know over think things a lot, I hate that. I also assume things a lot and that has gotten me in trouble so I’m kinda paranoid to make sure I get it right, since I’ve never done it, so thank you for being patient with me. So to make sure I understand things correctly, I change “storageLocation=‘/images’” to what, the IP of the NAS? Then I go into the fog management console and change the current storage node settings or add one?

[Tom Elliott]

@ManofValor Well your images need to be available either on one or the other. You can create a Storage Node out of the NAS you have by ensuring there is a user and password and that is defined in the storage node definition created to handle it. You mounting it to your FOG server would not work because it would require you mounting either iSCSI (which you’ve already learned is not a very simple thing and I doubt iSCSI targets and query strings are setup for a simple things such as a nas), or some other FS managing tool other than CIFS (Windows Share/Samba) or NFS (What FOG typically uses).

By making the NAS a “node” you will lose such things as the ability to replicate to other nodes and multicast tasks. I don’t know of a good way around that for you unless you’re able to do a TON of research in installing the FOG system on the NAS directly.

[ManofValor]

@Tom-Elliott said in Does FOG work with iSCSI?:

By making the NAS a “node” you will lose such things as the ability to replicate to other nodes…

Meaning like a secondary backup?

… and multicast tasks.

You mean deploying/Imaging multiple clients?

What would you suggest in my situation, whether it’s the easiest or not, to get connected to my NAS? What would you do?

[ManofValor]

Ok, so change of plans. I do need help with setting up with iSCSI. I knew my NAS was iSCSI capable, but I just found out it is only iSCSI. Yeah, more learning!

[Wayne Workman]

@ManofValor I managed a Tera station at my last job. They certainly support more than just iSCSI.

I’d suggest don’t worry about multicast. Unicast in fog trunk is stupid fast already.

Figure out how to make an NFS share on it, and also share the same directory with FTP. Set a user/pass for ftp. Those are the credentials you plug into fog storage management.

All these things have been said here and other places before. You gotta sit down and dig in, and read instead of skimming - and experiment. You’ll fail many times before it works and that’s just fine. It’s called learning.

[ManofValor]

@Wayne-Workman said in Does FOG work with iSCSI?:

@ManofValor I managed a Tera station at my last job. They certainly support more than just iSCSI.

Actually, I called Buffalo tech and they said that particular NAS is iSCSI only.

[Wayne Workman]

@ManofValor Ok then, progress. We have to use iSCSI then. Calling them was good - that’s part of digging into this.

[Tom Elliott]

http://www.buffalotech.com/support-and-downloads/faqs/creating-an-iscsi-target-on-a-buffalo-terastation

[ManofValor]

So now I have iSCSI enabled and connected to FOG/NAS device and should all be ready to go. I ran another image to see if it is working. Do ya’ll know if there’s something else I need to do to push it through or is it supposed to start backing up automatically? I haven’t seen anywhere yet that I need to but maybe ya’ll know something I don’t.

[Tom Elliott]

I don’t know if I follow?

[ManofValor]

@Tom-Elliott Basically, I’m not sure what to look for to know if the images are being sent to the NAS device. I’ve never used one so I’m not sure if there’s a delay before it starts, or if I have everything in order, or what? Is there something I have to do to push it to the NAS every time I image or Is it automatic, if I did it right? I’ve done everything I can find on this and it seemed pretty simple after figuring it all out so not sure if I’m missing anything.

[ManofValor]

@Wayne-Workman @Tom-Elliott

Can anyone help me with my last question?

[Wayne Workman]

@ManofValor Is this your main storage node? Do images upload/replicate to it? Also - if properly setup everything will be automatic.

[Sebastian Roth]

@ManofValor NAS = Network Attached Storage, in simple terms means a storage device (you know storage could be disk, USB key, SD card, CD, …) that is connected over network - compared to all the others being connected on an internal system bus. The data being written to any of those devices (be it the normal ones or NAS) should end up on the device without any extra “push” or something. But maybe I got your question wrong?!?

[Quazz]

Where is the iSCSI device located on the FOG server? What does your Storage Node setup look like?

[ManofValor]

@Quazz

[root@localhost /]# cd /opt/fog/images
[root@localhost images]# ls
dev  MCWP77  MCWP82  MCWPL54  postdownloadscripts

I did another image,MCWPL25, after connecting to the NAS, via iSCSI, and it is not showing up with the others. Either it worked and is on the NAS or something else happened. I also noticed this under image management:

One thing I am trying to figure out though is how to check the NAS. The interface I have doesn’t show me what’s on the disk’s. Just the size of the disk’s. I’m still learning how to use it but haven’t got much time on it. This is what I’m working on now.

[Tom Elliott]

@ManofValor No Data, under that field, just means the last known date to when that image was uploaded is not available (there’s no data to show).