Release Notes

Example iSCSI vSwitch configurations
20 Configuring and Installing the PS Series Multipathing Extension Module for VMware vSphere and PS Series | TR1074
A Example iSCSI vSwitch configurations
This appendix provides some examples of the additional parameters used with the setup.pl configuration
script. A detailed list of all the parameters and their usage can be found in the EqualLogic Multipathing
Extension Module Installation and User Guide.
A.1 Overriding hardware iSCSI offload default utilization
ESXi can utilize the iSCSI offload capabilities of the Broadcom
®
NetXtreme II network adapters, resulting in
significantly lower software iSCSI CPU utilization. By default, the setup.pl configuration script will utilize this
iSCSI offload capability if it is present. If there is a preference not to use the iSCSI offload capability, this must
be specified when configuring the iSCSI vSwitch. This is shown as follows:
setup.pl --configure --server=172.17.5.121 --nics=vmnic2,vmnic3
--ips=192.168.0.215,192.168.0.216 --nohwiscsi
A.2 Utilizing a vNetwork distributed switch
With Enterprise Plus licensing, VMware provides a virtual switch which spans many ESXi hosts. This
abstracts the configuration of individual vSwitches on the host level and enables centralized management
through vSphere vCenter server. If utilizing a vNetwork Distributed Switch for iSCSI traffic, the --vds
parameter must be specified. Should the name of the vNetwork Distributed Switch differ from the default
utilized by the configuration script, it can be specified using the –-vswitch parameter. This is shown as follows:
setup.pl --configure --server=172.17.5.121 --nics=vmnic2,vmnic3
--ips=192.168.0.215,192.168.0.216 –-vswitch vdsISCSI --vds
A.3 Enabling Jumbo Frames
With the vSphere release of ESXi support for Jumbo Frames has been extended to VMkernel traffic, which
includes the iSCSI stack. To utilize Jumbo Frames, they must be enabled on all networking components
used. By default, the setup.pl script uses an MTU of 1500 when creating the iSCSI vSwitch and VMkernel
interfaces. To use a larger value, specify it as demonstrated in the following example:
setup.pl --configure --server=172.17.5.121 --nics=vmnic2,vmnic3
--ips=192.168.0.215,192.168.0.216 –-mtu=9000
A.4 Setting the iSCSI discover address
It is possible to specify the group IP of an array to be set as the send targets discovery address for the iSCSI
initiator.
setup.pl --configure --server=172.17.5.121 --nics=vmnic2,vmnic3
--ips=192.168.0.215,192.168.0.216 –-groupip=192.168.0.200