ESXi 5.0 boot delays when configured for Software iSCSI

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

ESXi 5.0 experiences a delay when booting during the software-iscsi step.
After the boot process completes, the sysboot.log file contains entries similar to:

[01:57:50.925338] sysboot: software-iscsi
[02:28:22.330320] sysboot: restore-paths
After the boot process completes, the syslog.log file contains entries similar to:

iscsid: cannot make a connection to 192.168.1.20:3260 (101,Network is unreachable)
iscsid: Notice: Reclaimed Channel (H34 T0 C1 oid=3)
iscsid: session login failed with error 4,retryCount=3
iscsid: Login Target Failed: iqn.1984-05.com.dell:powervault.md3000i.6002219000a14a2b00000000495e2886 if=iscsi_vmk@vmk8 addr=192.168.1.20:3260 (TPGT:1 ISID:0xf) err=4
iscsid: Login Failed: iqn.1984-05.com.dell:powervault.md3000i.6002219000a14a2b00000000495e2886 if=iscsi_vmk@vmk8 addr=192.168.1.20:3260 (TPGT:1 ISID:0xf) Reason: 00040000 (Initiator Connection Failure)

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

Cause

This issue occurs because ESXi 5.0 attempts to connect to all configured or known targets from all configured software iSCSI portals. If a connection fails, ESXi 5.0 retries the connection 9 times. This can lead to a lengthy iSCSI discovery process, which increases the amount of time it takes to boot an ESXi 5.0 host.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in ESXi 5.0 Express Patch 01. For more information, see:

Notes:

When you are upgrading to ESXi 5.0, there are two ISO files: one for systems without software iSCSI configured and one for systems with software iSCSI configured. If you have configured software iSCSI devices, or if you think you might use software iSCSI in the future, ensure that you choose the ISO image for systems with software iSCSI.
This express patch ISO contains all of the fixes in ESXi 5.0 Patch 01, plus the software iSCSI fix.
VMware is delivering an ISO file for this patch release due to the nature of this issue. This is not common practice and is only done in special circumstances.

Note: The ISO containing ESXi 5.0 Patch 01 is only available to licensed customers, and is not available for download without an entitlement. However, non-licensed customers can download Patch 01 to upgrade an existing version of ESXi 5.0 to resolve this issue.

Workaround

To minimize the amount of time the boot process spends discovering iSCSI targets, you can reduce the number of network portals and the number of targets. Also populate only the static target(s) which are required to access the VMFS volume and do not unnecessarily fill up all the static targets which may increase the overall boot times of ESXi.

To list the current number and configuration of an ESXi host's network portals, run this command:

esxcli iscsi networkportal list

The output is similar to this:

vmhba34: Adapter: vmhba34 Vmknic: vmk6 MAC Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx MAC Address Valid: true IPv4: 192.168.1.206 IPv4 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 IPv6: MTU: 1500 Vlan Supported: true Vlan ID: 10 Reserved Ports: 63488~65536 TOE: false TSO: true TCP Checksum: false Link Up: true Current Speed: 10000 Rx Packets: 656558 Tx Packets: 111264 NIC Driver: ixgbe NIC Driver Version: 2.0.84.8.2-10vmw-NAPI NIC Firmware Version: 0.9-3 Compliant Status: compliant NonCompliant Message: NonCompliant Remedy: Vswitch: dvSwitch0 PortGroup: DvsPortset-0 VswitchUuid: 26 46 30 50 c0 cf df 1e-52 ef ab d7 a2 ab 96 f9 PortGroupKey: dvportgroup-78003 PortKey: 1731 Duplex: Path Status: active

Note: This is an example of one network portal (HBA34).

To list currently running targets, run this command:

vmkiscsi-tool -T vmhba##

For more information on reducing number of network portals and the number of targets, contact your array vendor.

Additional Information

VMware ESXi 5.0, Patch Release ESXi500-201111001
VMware ESXi 5.0 Patch ESXi500-201111401-BG: Updates esx-base
Atraso na inicialização do ESXi 5.x quando configurado para Software iSCSI
El inicio de ESXi 5.x demora cuando está configurado para el software iSCSI
ESXi 5.0 在配置了软件 iSCSI 时出现引导延迟
ソフトウェア iSCSI が構成されているときに ESXi 5.x の起動が遅くなる