StorTrends - Citrix. Introduction. Getting Started: Setup Guide

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1 StorTrends - Citrix Setup Guide Introduction This guide is to assist in configuring a Citrix virtualization environment with a StorTrends SAN array. It is intended for the virtualization and SAN administrator with base Linux knowledge. In following this it should be easy to add a new storage repository utilizing a StorTrends LUN properly. There is limited error assistance, so please follow step-by-step if you are unsure about this process from prior experience. If there are any questions in this guide or completing this task, please do not hesitate to reach out to StorTrends support. StorTrends Technical Support: stortrends-support@ami.com Getting Started: In this configuration guide we have already configured a few items, but it is generally starting from scratch. It is assumed that: StorTrends array and storage pool is created (as it comes shipped) with iscsi network access If multipathing, should have separate subnets for each iscsi network interface Go ahead and configure this with each alias If bonding, should have each interface on the same subnet Go ahead and configure this with the alias Citrix 5.6+ (this guide: c) with XenCenter 6.5 (this guide: build ) iscsi network access from an interface other than the management interface If multipathing, should have separate subnets for each iscsi network interface If bonding, should have each interface on the same subnet If clustering, pool should already be created between similar hardware

2 StorTrends Configuration Create LUN: We will quickly run through creating a LUN within StorTrends to start. 1. After logging into ManageTrends (StorTrends Web UI), then right-click on Storage or go to the bottom of the left pane. Select the Volume Wizard Link to create a volume. Yes, the dedupe / compression is 3842x better than everyone else s (I m being generous by giving them 5x)! 2. Within the wizard, select the corresponding storage pool that you would like the Citrix storage repository stored in. Put in the name and size as in the example below. If pooling Citrix servers then also check the Allow multiple initiators box. 3. Now, click on the [Add to List] button to add the volume to the list (as in the bottom part of the screenshot above) and then [Finish]. 4. You should now be able to view the newly created volume by selecting it from the left pane. Also notice in the picture below the 2 alias IPs in the bottom of the Target Information section for connecting. The IP(s) that you are connecting with should be here.

3 ERROR CHECK: If they are not, please go into the Control Panel and select Portals from within the iscsi section. Select the alias that you are using for iscsi and make sure that different subnets have different Portal Tags (multipathing). Click on the Enable button. You MUST do this for both controllers. Citrix MPIO Configuration Enable Multipathing: Now that we have an available StorTrends LUN, we can setup the Citrix environment. We will use the Citrix XenCenter (Citrix management interface) from here on. You may skip this section if you have a single iscsi network interface or plan on bonding interfaces together. The first requirement is to enable multipathing (if not already active). To check, get to the XenServer s properties by right-clicking on the corresponding server or [Properties] from the General tab. The fourth option in the properties is Multipathing and it will say Active if it is already enabled. Do this for all XenServers in this pool. You may skip this section if this is already completed. 1. To configure multipathing, first put the XenServer in maintenance mode by right-clicking on the corresponding server and selecting Enter Maintenance Mode as shown below. If pooled, allow the other server to be the new master.

4 2. Go back into this XenServer s properties and select the Enable multipathing on this server box within the Multipathing section. Now select the [OK] button at the bottom right of this pane. 3. Exit maintenance mode and do this for each of the pooled XenServers. Please go ahead and check to ensure that Multipathing is active.

5 Citrix Network Configuration Configure Network Bonding This section is just in case that there are multiple iscsi interfaces on the same subnet and the requirement is to either have more throughput or simply sustained redundancy. 1. Select the Networking tab and then click on the [Add Network ] button. Next, select Bonded Network radio button and then the [Next >] button. Please follow Citrix switch requirements for LACP. 2. Choose the interfaces that are available for the iscsi network and then choose the bond mode that works for your environment. 3. Do this for each XenServer within the pool.

6 Citrix Network Configuration Create iscsi Network This section is to add in the iscsi network as this document assumes a newly created Citrix environment. You may skip this section if you have an iscsi network already configured. Please follow the steps below to create an iscsi network. 1. Select the Networking tab and then click on the [Configure ] button at the bottom of the right pane. 2. In the Configure IP Addresses wizard, select the Add IP address link on the left. 3. As shown above, type in a meaningful name and select the proper network interface. Production solutions should also have a static IP address assigned within all hypervisor network settings, so definitely assign an IP by selecting the Use these settings: radio button. 4. Do this for all iscsi network interfaces on all XenServers within the pool. As you can see in the example below I have 2 interfaces on separate subnets in preparation for an iscsi solution with Multipathing.

7 Citrix iscsi Configuration Set iscsi Timeout The iscsi timeout is the amount of time that the hypervisor will wait for a disk to come back from a loss of connection. This loss of connection can be from anything including the network or the SAN. We increase this value to ensure that there is no data loss in the event of an abrupt failure that is automatically / manually caught within a reasonable amount of time. The best practice is to configure this prior to connecting to a StorTrends LUN as it will automatically handle this setting upon any login now and across XenServer reboot. In this example, I use the linux text editor vi, however anything is fine. 1. Select the Console tab within the XenServer. Hit Enter to get into the shell. 2. Create and open the rule file in vi. Type: vi /etc/udev/rules.d/99-stortrends-scsi-udev.rules 3. Press i to type (vi: insert). As shown above, type exactly: #Citrix VDisk Timeout ACTION== add, SUBSYSTEMS== scsi, ATTRS{vendor}== QENU, ATTRS{model}== QEMU HARDDISK, RUN+= /bin/ sh c echo 190 > /sys$devpath/device/timeout 4. To save this file, now hit [ESC] and type :wq (vi command to write and quit). 5. To check this, type cat /etc/udev/rules.d/99-stortrends-scsi-udev.rules. Please check below: 6. Do this for all XenServers within the pool. 7. For older Citrix environments, run and note the host numbers in ls /sys/devices/platform/ to check the timeouts later.

8 Citrix SR Configuration Create StorTrends Storage Repository This section includes adding the StorTrends LUN and creating the Citrix Storage Repository. 1. Click on the [New SR ] from the Storage tab of the XenServer information page. 2. In the New Storage Repository wizard, select the Software iscsi radio button and then [Next >]. 3. As shown below, put in one of the StorTrends iscsi IPs into the top Target host name/ip address: field. 4. Now, click on the [Scan Target Host] button in the middle. This will automatically discover the available LUNs within the StorTrends array and populate them in the iscsi Target dropdown menu. 5. Select the proper IQN (LUN target) name and ensure that this matches the LUN capacity in the Target LUN dropdown. It is possible to have multiple LUNs coming from a single target; however this is only to be done in an environment with a low performance requirement. 6. Click [Finish] at the bottom right and then click [Yes] to formatting the new virtual disk. You will see this in the Storage tab, as well as it will automatically become pooled storage in the left pane.

9 Citrix iscsi Configuration Check the iscsi Timeouts Now that we are connected via iscsi, this step is to ensure that the timeouts were configured properly. This guide is assuming a new configuration, so the device names will be different from adding on to an existing Citrix environment. If step 7 of the timeout section was followed, then we ll notice the new host numbers to identify. Note that the host numbers are dynamic as they change across reboot of the Citrix XenServer. 1. Go back to the console tab within the XenServer. Hit Enter if it isn t still open. 2. There are a few ways to check the iscsi devices. The screenshot below shows the standard block device (sd* - this is what is getting changed by the timeout script), however this is passed to the iscsi session so that is what we will check. The commands below start from the middle of the screenshot below. The reason that this example has 2 timeouts for a single target is because of the Multipathing as each path is treated independently by the iscsi initiator (XenServer). Type: cat /sys/devices/platform/host (do not hit [Enter]) Hit [Tab] to fill; or [Tab] [Tab] (Tab twice) to show the host number options in the line below Type (in this case): 10 or 9, then hit [Tab] Type: se, then hit [Tab] Type: t, then hit [Tab] Type (in this case): 10 or 9, then hit [Tab] (This will be the same value as above) Type: ti, then hit [Tab] and [Enter] 3. As shown above, all values for the StorTrends LUN(s) should be set to 190. If this is correct, then check all of the other hosts within the pool and skip the rest of this section. 4. ERROR CHECK: The time out is not correctly configured. Something was mistyped. This happens. Compare your rules script with the rules script above. If you do not find an error, then stop and call StorTrends support. Common mistypes are: vendor and model are surrounded by braces or curly brackets Vendor is QENU and model is QEMU The spaces around the greater than symbol. i.e. (190 > /sys) The very end is an apostrophe and quote together. i.e. ( + )

10 5. Disconnect and reconnect to the StorTrends LUN or run the following commands. You can also see the example with multipathing below to where sdb and sdc are the last 2 devices. Type: ls /sys/block/s and hit [Tab] [Tab] (Tab twice) to list the optional devices The ls /sys/block/ is shown in the screenshot below. If multipathing and only connected to a single LUN, it will be the last 2 sd# devices. Else, on a single LUN this will only be the last sd# device. Type (in this case): echo 190 > /sys/block/sdb/device/timeout Type (in this case): echo 190 > /sys/block/sdc/device/timeout Check - Type (in this case): cat /sys/block/sdb/device/timeout Check - Type (in this case): cat /sys/block/sdc/device/timeout If this did not work, then stop and call StorTrends support.

11 Citrix VM Configuration Create VM utilizing a StorTrends iscsi Disk Again, assuming a brand new environment, we can now create a VM utilizing our newly created StorTrends iscsi disk. To do this follow these steps below. 1. Select the New VM button at the top of XenCenter 2. Follow the wizard in selecting the OS template, naming, installation media, chosen server and CPU / memory resources. 3. Storage: As seen below, StorTrends is the default storage so it is automatically chosen. For existing environments, select the [Properties] button to change this storage repository. 4. After selecting the proper network, you can review the settings and click on the [Create Now] button at the bottom right of the New VM wizard. The VM will now show up in your XenServer inventory for the corresponding server that is due to run the VM. 5. Make sure that the VM s disk timeouts are set properly to 190 as the underlying hardware is an iscsi LUN.

12 Citrix VM Configuration Migrate a VM s vdisk to a StorTrends iscsi Disk For the existing environments, the simplest migration path is to move vdisks from an old storage repository to the new. The only limitation on this is that Citrix requires the VM to be powered down to perform this task as it does not show up as an option while the VM is powered on as seen below. 1. Within XenCenter right-click on the VM and select the Move VM option. 2. You will see the old storage repository grayed out, so simply select the StorTrends iscsi disk and click on the [Move] button to proceed.

13 Citrix VM Configuration Add a StorTrends vdisk to an Existing VM In the instance that you want to utilize the VM s OS functionalities for live data migration such as SUSE / Novell LVM mirror, Microsoft s Dynamic Disk mirroring (not supported with VSS) or similar we can add a StorTrends vdisk to the VM. 1. Note that Citrix requires the VM to be down / rebooted before the added disk will be populated. 2. Go into the Storage tab of the VM that you would like to add the StorTrends vdisk and then click on the [Add ] button at the bottom of the main pane. 3. This opens up the Add Virtual Disk wizard that allows you to label and size the new vdisk. Select the StorTrends iscsi storage repository and then click [Add].

14 4. The new vdisk will automatically show up in the Storage tab of that corresponding VM once the disk is fully added. Citrix HA Configuration The Final Piece For the new configurations, if you would prefer an automatic failover solution for the VMs then high availability must be configured. If you already have HA configured then you are finished. 1. Right-click on the cluster from the left-hand pane of XenCenter to open up the Configure HA wizard. Review the prerequisites and click the [Next >] button. It will then scan for all proper SRs for the quorum. 2. You can use the available StorTrends iscsi storage repository, however if you are taking snapshots or planning on having any form of VM recovery then we recommend having a separate StorTrends iscsi disk (1 GB is fine per Citrix documentation) dedicated for this. In the example here I just simply use the available StorTrends SR. Click [Next >] to continue through the wizard.

15 3. Choose your settings based on priority post-failure. For example, if the entire environment is DHCP (except these hypervisors and storage of course) then the DHCP / DNS server s Start order would be set to 0 (top priority VMs) and then allowed 30 seconds (for example) to completely boot up with services fully running. The 30 second boot window is configured by the Attempt to start next VM after: value. Click the [Next >] button once you have gone through all of your VMs. 4. The screenshot below shows the overview with the StorTrends iscsi storage repository as the heartbeat SR. 5. If you want to see the status, make any changes or if you have added a VM just left-click on the cluster name and go to the HA tab on the right-hand pane. New VMs from here onward will automatically get the settings of Do not restart, Start order: 0, Delay: 0.

16 Citrix SR Configuration Storage Repository Expansion Down the road, you may need to add to your storage repository capacity. This is the only non-seamless process that I have found in Citrix XenServer. The latest Citrix documentation (XenServer 6.5) says to simply expand the LUN and then run the command xe sr-scan sr-uuid=<sr_uuid>. Other online documentation claims that running a pbd-unplug and pbd-plug works. It does not. Please reach out to StorTrends support the day that any of this is accurate and/or available in Citrix XenServer or XenCenter (Storage tab -> [Rescan]) so that we can update our documentation. That being said, here we have a pooled HA and MPIO environment (probably why this scenario isn t so simple) and customers that have gone through leaps and bounds to complete this task. As always, please follow the steps exactly as they are below. 1. Because we are not able to follow Citrix s Live LUN Expansion, we recommend doing this during a maintenance window with all VMs stored within this storage repository to be powered down or simply migrated off. 2. Find the master node. The only easy way to know this is that it is the top host of the pool in XenCenter. The proper way is to run the command xe pool-list params=master and match this UUID to the UUID within the corresponding host s General tab. 3. Please go to the MASTER node s Console tab. Hit [Enter].

17 4. Rescan the iscsi LUN Type: iscsiadm m node R 5. Find the device name for this disk using the previous size. Type: Type: multipath l 6. Run the MPIO resize command. In the event that you previously had the exact same sizes, you can just do this to all of them. The command will just try and reply with ok. If you have chosen an invalid device then it will reply with fail. Type: multipathd k resize map dm-5 7. Run the LVM physical volume resize command. Type: lvm pvresize /dev/dm-5

18 8. Lastly rescan the SR in XenCenter by selecting the SR at the bottom of the pool and clicking the [Rescan] button at the bottom left of the Storage tab. 9. You will now see the available space increase in the General tab beside the Size: value. Do not use the Description: value as it is static to the description that was put in once the SR was created (In my case I used the default that shows the initial target information).

19 Citrix StorTrends Setup Guide: Conclusion You should now have a production ready Citrix virtualization environment utilizing your new or existing StorTrends SAN array. Please reach out to support to check your configuration, with any questions / concerns or to complain about anything within this guide. American Megatrends Inc Oakbrook Parkway, Bldg. 200 Norcross GA t: Sales & Product Information StorTrendsSales@ami.com t: Technical Support stortrends-support@ami.com t: CERTIFIED Performance Storage. Proven Value.