Coincidentally, someone sent out a note about doing BFS with 12G today Q:  How do I configure iSCSI boot?. A:   There is a whitepaper published for 12G servers with Linux Dell EqualLogic – Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 Boot from SAN en.community.dell.com/.../download.aspx The published information for windows host systems applies to 10G and 11G servers and has not yet been updated to reflect 12G servers, Windows server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 Instructions to Perform Boot from iSCSI for Dell Storage Arrays i.dell.com/.../Instructions_to_Perform_Boot_from_iSCSI_for_Dell_Storage_Arrays.pdf   If you get asked how to do this in the meantime the following information may be of use. Test system. Model:                 Poweredge R620 System BIOS:     1.3.6 NIC:                       57800S QP rNDC (10G SFP+ + 1G BASE-T) NIC firmware:   7.2.20 NIC Driver:          Dell,  17.4.0.9   (hard drive version)                                Broadcom 15.4.9.2 OS:                         Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 HITKIT:                 4.0 (requires equallogic.com registered account to download) Overview of the procedure to configure iSCSI boot on a 12G server with Windows server 2008 R2 1. Customise the Windows server 2008 build  to remove the native Broadcom drivers using the Microsoft AIK  (see Microsoft KB  support.microsoft.com/.../974072 ) You will need to download and extract the Broadcom device drivers and extract them to expose the INF files.   To extract the drivers to the local disk you must run the installation package using that  /a parameter. You can either incorporate the drivers in the image (following the steps on KB 974072) or remove the native Broadcom drivers from Windows installation image and load them manually via USB or virtual media. Note: I used the drivers from Broadcom.com for this part as I could not get the current drivers on support.dell.com to work for the BCM57800,  the drivers on support.dell.com work fine for the BCM5720 2. Optimise the network switch fabric for iSCSI traffic per guidelines issued for Equallogic arrays. (en.community.dell.com/.../2631.storage-infrastructure-and-solutions-team.aspx ) Note:  Virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging is not supported for iSCSI boot with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator. 3. Provision the volume within group manager for iSCSI boot.     Note: Copy the full iSCSI target IQN name to notepad. 4. Configure the system BIOS settings via the lifecycle controller  (F10 on POST) Enable iSCSI boot on the Broadcom NIC ports you intend to use. Set the IP address for the iSCSI initiator, boot as first HDD, Set the link up delay time to 15 and LUN Busy Retry Count to 10   (default values are 0)   ! This may not be necessary and default values will probably work ok for most cases. Set the iSCSI target settings using the full IQN (Do not use the alias) Reboot and change the BIOS boot order via system setup (F2 on POST) so the iSCSI boot adapter takes precedence over other devices. 5. During POST you should observe the iSCSI login to the target.   If you do not see this you will need to review the settings and network configuration. Press Ctrl+D to skip booting to the iSCSI target and continue to boot the customised Windows server 2008 image and install windows. Tip: When this has installed and completed the first boot take a snapshot – this is not necessary, but if you make a mistake in subsequent steps that causes the operating system to fail on boot you have something to fall back on. 6. Install the Broadcom suite (17.2.0.9) from support.dell.com.  This will require an OS reboot. Enable jumbo frames on reboot (MTU 9014), this will require a reboot and the system may hang after you apply the settings with a single NIC, a forced reboot will resolve this. 7. Install the Microsoft hotfix.  (KB976042) Note: If you ever need to change the motherboard you will run into this issue if the lightweight filter driver introduced in R2 does not have the patch applied. Windows may fail to boot from an iSCSI drive if networking hardware is changed - support.microsoft.com/.../976042   8. Install the Host integration toolkit, run the remote setup wizard and exclude non-ISCSI ranges. This will require a reboot to complete. 9. Consider disabling the windows paging file (set its size to 0) to minimise the effect on performance or if you have a local hard disk you can point the paging file there.  He also mentioned that the help files from Broadcom were useful.   An excerpt here:    Windows Server 2008 R2 and SP2 iSCSI Boot Setup  The Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Windows Server 2008 SP2 support booting as well as installing in either the offload or non-offload paths. The following procedure is to prepare to install and boot the Windows Server 2008 R2 and SP2 iSCSI Boot image in either the offload or non-offload path. The procedure below references the Windows Server 2008 R2 but procedure is common to both the Windows Server 2008 R2 and SP2. CD/iso needed: USB drive: Other Software Needed: Procedure:  
Hi. I'm trying to set up iSCSI boot of our diskless M620 blades (with Broadcom 57810S NIC) from PS group (consisting of PS6110XS and 6110X). I followed the latest documentation - which is for 11G servers - [URL] Basically I have: - created a LUN on the EQL group, set the access to "not restricted" for simplicity sake - on the M620, I've configured the BIOS setting according to the documentation Now when the server is booting, 2 things happen: 1) if boot mode is set to UEFI, there's just black screen during the time when the network card should be connecting to the EQL LUN and nothing happens 2) if boot mode is set to BIOS, then the initiator successfully connects - logs in to the EQL target When 2) is used, the boot process then proceeds with starting OS setup (Windows 2008 R2) from the virtual media - ISO connected via iDRAC7 virtual media. On the screen where target drive/volume is to be selected, where the OS should be installed, the LUN is not shown (which is  to be expected), so I load the EVDB and W2k8 (NDIS) drivers from the latest extracted Broadcom drivers release. Both drivers load fine, but the LUN is still not displayed - multiple refresh doesn't help, waiting any amount of time does neither. On my EQL group, I can see two events: - first is the successful logon attempt - iSCSI login to target '192.168.130.131:3260, iqn.2001-05.com.equallogic:0-1cb196-346d3be07-4ec6625386850892-test' from initiator '192.168.130.150:15146, iqn.1995-05.com.broadcom.iscsiboot' successful, using standard frame length. - second is roughly 5 minutes later - iSCSI session to target '192.168.130.131:3260, iqn.2001-05.com.equallogic:0-1cb196-346d3be07-4ec6625386850892-test' from initiator '192.168.130.150:15146, iqn.1995-05.com.broadcom.iscsiboot' was closed. iSCSI initiator connection failure.No response on connection for 6 seconds. Can anyone help? Why doesn't the initiator even try to login to the target when UEFI mode is used? Is iSCSI boot unsupported in this case? Boot order is configured the same in both modes (ie. first is the NIC port connected to the EQL (via chassis switches), second is the virtual cd). Speculating that maybe the connection is timing out because it takes the OS loader so long to load since it's going via iDRAC's virtual media and that's slow as hell? Thanks in advance
iSCSI boot M620 with PSx110