Configuring iSCSI MPIO on Windows Server 2008 R2, involves 2 distinct procedures.
- The first procedure is to enable the MPIO feature. This procedure is required only once per Server.
- The second procedure is to add multiple sessions to an existing connection to a VPSA iSCSI target. This procedure is required to be executed once for every VPSA the Server is connected to.
1. Enable the MPIO Feature on the Windows 2008 R2 Server
MPIO is a Feature in Server 2008 R2 listed as Multipath I/O.
- Select Multipath I/O feature and follow the installation instruction on the screen:
- Click Start and type “MPIO”, launch the control panel applet.
- In the opened window, click on the Discover Multi-Paths tab, check the box for “Add support for iSCSI devices”, and click Add.
Note: In some cases the "Add support for iSCSI devices” check-box is grayed out. To enable it, you need to first connect the Server to the VPSA (follow the steps at "How To Connect a Windows Servers to a VPSA using CHAP") and attach a Volume from the VPSA to this Server.
- You should immediately be prompted to reboot.
- After rebooting, open the MPIO Control Panel applet again, you should see the iSCSI bus listed as a device.
2. Discover and Connect to the VPSA Target Portal
- Follow the procedure to connect the Windows server to the VPSA iSCSI target using CHAP.
- Repeat the following 3 steps to add an additional session
- Select the VPSA target and press the Connect button.
- Select the Enable multi-path check-box, then, click Advanced...
- Select "Enable CHAP log-on" check-box and enter the CHAP Username and Target Secret. Both values are displayed in the VPSA GUI, under the Controllers page, in the properties tab. Press OK to confirm the operation.
- In the iSCSI Initiator Properties page, you can now see 2 sessions displayed.
- You can follow the steps above to add more session to the same target however you must use the CHAP authentication credentials provided by the connected server instead of the CHAP authentication credentials provided by the Controller (as shown above). This is true in the latest versions of the VPSA software.
Note: Make sure the windows registry timeout settings are set correctly according to the article below: Recommended Windows iSCSI registry configuration.