OpenFiler – Open Source storage solution

storage

Posted By: admin March 3, 2018

Openfiler is a Linux based operating system. The OpenFiler application provides the file-based network-attached storage and block-based storage area network.

Installation:

  • Boot the server hardware using the OpenFiler installation ISO and follow the steps. This is very similar to the installation of CentOS operating system.
  • Ensure you configure the IP address and make a note of it during the installation process.
  • The ISO image used when writing this article is:
    openfileresa-2.99.1-x86_64-disc1
  • Once the installation is complete, you can access the web interface by accessing the following URL:
    https://<ip address>:446
  • The default admin user credentials are:
    Username : admin
    Password : password

You can use OpenFiler to configure NAS storage, use as a SAN storage, etc

Steps to create and share a new block device to ESX or any other host:

  • In order to share a new block device to a server, similar nature as a SAN volume, go to the “Volumes” tab.
  • Select the “Create new physical volumes” link
  • Choose the disk you want to use. In my example I have added a new disk of 20GG and is mapped as “/dev/sdb” by my system. Click on “/dev/sdb”
  • Since this is a new disk the disk will be 100% free
  • Scroll below and under the section “Create a partition in /dev/sdb” create a partition of your choice. I created a partition of 10GB
  • Select the “Volume Groups” link on right.
  • Under “Create a new volume group” section, Type a new name, for example “VG01”, select the partition “/dev/sdb1” and click the “Add Volume Group” button.
  • You will be able to see the new group we just created, VG01, under “Volume Group Management”
  • The next step is to create a volume. For this press the link “Add Volume”
  • In the section “Create a volume in “vg01″”,  enter a name, for example “VOL_DS1”.
  • As description I entered “Volume to be used by ESX as Datastore” since my intention is to mount this in my ESX host.
  • In the “Required Space” use the full area by dragging the slider bar.
  • In the “Filesystem / Volume type” select “block, iSCSI, FC, etc” since we will be mounting this volume as a block device in the ESX host.
  • Click on the “Create” button.

Now you will see the newly created volume