running virtualbox 4 on a synology iscsi device

quick notes to get vms running on iscsi luns.

1) create a lun on the synology. give it a reasonable name. (see left image)

2) create an iscsi target for it, with a sensible iqn. (see right image)

NOTE: the naming is what works for me. iqn is mostly RFC3721 compliant with exception of the date: I set the date to the general ballpark of when I created the iscsi target. Not when I created my first antoonhuiskens.com domain.

3) I really should set up lun masking.

Though the manual state that virtualbox runs its own initiator, this didn't sink in until I set masking up: I initially mapped the iscsi lun to the microsoft iscsi initiator, but that doesnt work, since the iqn of the vbox adapter is different.

a brief snoop (with wireshark) showed that the iqn is:

iqn.2009-08.com.sun.virtualbox.initiator:01:

as an example: iqn.2009-08.com.sun.virtualbox.initiator:01:192.168.1.104

I expect that the "01" in the iqn serves a function as well, but we'll find that out later I suppose.

4) create the vm on the host.

Needs to be done commandline:

vboxmanage is to be found in:

\program files\oracle\virtualbox

vboxmanage createvm --name dc-utr-01-vmtest --ostype WindowsXP --register

I found that its convenient to register immediately. This means from now on, the vm shows up with "vboxmanage list vms" and also in the gui.

I set the ostype to win xp for no other reason than hoping (yes, hoping) it would set me up with some sensible defaults.

5) add a disk controller to the vm. Choose wisely I'd say. after all ide means only a master and a slave device. scsi, sas etc do not suffer from these limitations. For now, I dont care enough.

vboxmanage storagectl dc-utr01-vmtest --name controller0 --ide

6) attach a port on the controller of the vm to the virtual machine:

vboxmanage storageattach dc-utr01-vmtest \

--storagectl controller0 # as created in step 5

--port 0

--device 0 # Not sure. it works though. prolly related to how I setup the controller in step 5.

--type hdd # goes without saying

--medium iscsi

--server 192.168.1.10

--target iqn.2011-03-com.antoonhuiskens:VBOX-LUNS.dc-utr01-vmtest

Now all you need to do is fumble through the settings in the gui to see if you missed some sensible defaults (video memory for instance is one).