iSCSI File Shares Disappear

April 02, 2009

 

A quick tip for those new to iSCSI, the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator, and using the two for file sharing.

Setting up the LUN, mapping it as a disk, and putting your file shares on it is great, but there are a few configuration steps you need to take if you experience your share settings disappear every time you reboot (even thought the files remain).

First, ensure that the Server service is dependent on the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service. To do this, go into the Services MMC, open the Server service properties, and check under the Dependencies tab. No Microsoft iSCSI Initiator? Open Regedit (Run - regedit.exe) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver. Find the key "DependOnService" and set it's value to MSiSCSI. The Server service is responsible for creating the shares; if this service starts up before the iSCSI LUNs are ready on the server, then the shares will not appear.

Second, make sure you set up the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator to automatically restore the connection and drive letters. Under the Targets tab, when you highlighted the target and clicked "Log On", did you check "Automatically restore this connection when the system boots"? If not, remove the connection and log it back on, this time selecting the correct option.

Third, after the drive has been set up and you assigned it a drive letter, go back into the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator software and click on the Bound Volumes/Devices tab. You'll see some funky volume path that looks like gibberish. Highlight it and click Add. Put in the drive letter you assigned and click Ok. This will cause the iSCSI Initiator service to not completely start until the volume has been mapped to the drive letter. Since the Server service now depends on the iSCSI service starting up, it'll have to wait until the volume is available before it can assign share settings.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Great article, but i cant find DEPENDONSERVICE in the registry for lanmanserver, The dependencies section for server in mmc is grayed saying no dependencies. Any idea?

/Suleiman

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