Jumping VDI

Hi,

As I have started on the storage with the last article I can continue with another interesting topic, which comes up quite often: "I already have an existing NAS/SAN. How can I combine this with Sun VDI 3 connecting to VirtualBox?"

ZFS is the filesystem that is used in combination with VirtualBox, as introduced in various blog entries and in the Sun VDI documentation. ZFS is included in Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris. It is also the foundation of the Sun Unified Storage. ZFS manages the physical storage attached to a server, but it is also capable of managing remote storage, e.g. through the iSCSI protocol. In the following I want to quickly demonstrate how this could be done:

Assuming you have a LUN and want to use it with VDI 3. And you have a spare Solaris 10U7 or OpenSolaris box. This can also be a box that you are using for VDI 3, but keep in mind, that you need RAM for utilizing external storage. Instrumental for linking the LUN into the ZFS filesystem is the iSCSI initiator:

1. First thing is to tell the iSCSI initiator to accept static iSCSI connections:
   iscsiadm modify discovery --static enable
2. Thereafter you can connect the initiator with your LUN. This can be done through providing the IQN of the LUN and the IP of the external storage host:
   iscsiadm add static-config IQN,IP
3. Next step is to list the new iSCSI target linked into the system
   iscsiadm list target -S
   The output list a number of things among the last line is most important:
   OS Device Name: /dev/rdsk/c1t600144F04A94DD370000144FEE09D000d0s2
4. Finally you create a new ZFS pool:
   zpool create VDI-Extern c1t600144F04A94DD370000144FEE09D000d0
   Note: Take the bold part without the trailing s2! as your parameter to identify the disk

That's all. Now you can use the external LUN in the same way as an internal one. Performance characteristics will be different with this storage proxy. The more RAM and CPU you have, the better.

-Dirk

Hi,

VDI 3 with VirtualBox is a self-contained system. However there are situations where you have the need to extract a certain image/virtual disk from VDI 3. As there is no in-built functionality yet, here is a procedure how to do it:

1. First thing is to tell the iSCSI initiator to accept static iSCSI connections:
   iscsiadm modify discovery --static enable
2. Find out the IQN of the iSCSI target. The easiest way is to look at the VM as it is registered on the VirtualBox hosts. Here you can use the command:
   VBoxManage list vms
   It will show also the IQN and the host of the connected LUN
3. Mount the LUN into your Solaris VBox host:
   iscsiadm add static-config IQN,IP - Note, take the IP not the host name
4. List the new target
   iscsiadm list target -S
   The last line contains the important output: OS Device Name: /dev/rdsk/c1t600144F04A97EBB50000144FEDF91800d0s2
5. Make a row copy of the content:
   dd if=/dev/rdsk/c1t600144F04A97EBB50000144FEDF91800d0p0 of=/var/tmp/test.out
   Note replace the s2 at the end of the raw disk with p0. Don't ask me why ;-)
6. Convert the raw file into a VDI file:
   convertdd /var/tmp/test.out /var/tmp/Ubuntu-test.vdi

That's it. Very simple and intuitive ;-). We will work on getting this a bit smoother, promised.

-Dirk

Hi,

Long time, no post. This doesn't mean that we are not around anymore;-) It's basically vacation period. However, during the last 2 months parts of my team have been working on a project that is called Sun VDI 3 - Patch 2. It sounds small, but it turned out to be a bigger chunk of work. It includes a number of enhancements:

• Performance improvements for desktop provisioning and user desktop access
  That is a big step forward, as we have removed quite some slack in the code.
• Recycling of Unix desktops
  This has been a missing feature for desktop life-cycle. Now all types of desktops can be controlled by recycling policies.
• Support for SuSE 11 desktops with the VirtualBox hypervisor.
• All-in-one configuration
  Similar to the evaluation setup. We've added a configuration option that allows to configure everything on one host using a remote DB. This is a supported configuration for production use.
• Customization of the login screen.

The x86 version of the patch is: 141482-02

And the related Sparc version is 141481-02

You find also a new VirtualBox 2.0.10 installation set on the Sun VDI 3 download page. An update is generally recommended. You must update, if you want to benefit from the SuSE 11 support or the expanded recycling capabilities.

- Dirk