iSCSI - Windows Server 2012 => Windows 8

CrimsonKnight13

CrimsonKnight13

Lord Stabington of [H]ard|Fortress
Joined
Jan 8, 2008
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Is there any iSCSI (or similar technology) software that allows mounting of a hard drive or a folder as an iSCSI share? Windows Server 2012 appears to only allow creation of a virtual drive rather than utilizing a physical drive or filesystem folder. I've read that such can by done with Linux.

I'd like to mount my networked drives to appear as physical drives instead of network drives on my Windows 8 systems.
 
You should be able to use iSCSI or NFS on the 2012 server and then mount the drives in windows 8, both should show as "local" drives rather then as a CIFS share. You need to add the iSCSI and/or NFS roles under add roles and features wizard in 2012.
 
I have both roles installed. With how 2012 is set up, NFS is a whole lot easier to configure. I'll attempt that first I think.
 
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but I'm only able to mount NFS shares with parallel SMB shares enabled of the same name. If I turn off the respective SMB share, Windows 8 won't connect to the NFS share.

What settings and/or permissions do I need to have for NFS-only shares to be mounted on a domain PC?
 
I was attempting to do it with KRB5 (Kerberos) only but so far I haven't had much success. Would anonymous access be a better route to take w/o having to rely on SMB?
 
I always use anonymous and then lock down by IP, depends on your environment though, but with vmware it's pretty much required to go anonymous with root access.
 
It's just a home network that I wanted to keep fairly secure (still figuring out the balance of functionality vs. security).

I wanted to keep it to Kerberos since I wouldn't have to worry about adding or removing IP addresses. Due to the headache of wanting NFS shares only, I'll try out anon plus IP address restrictions & update this thread with what I find later.

One question... does Windows 8 need root access to the share at all?

I appreciate the insight thus far.
 
I would do iSCSI.

Create a target on the 2012 server, and specify the IQN for the Win8 box.

On the Win8 box, create an initiator and connect to the 2012 server. There are a bunch of options for security, but I generally just use the IQN (initiator name) since it's only my home LAN. I've been using it on my HTPC for weeks. Pretty flawless, so far.

Kerb won't work unless you've got a domain. Try the iSCSI route, it's much easier.
 
I do have a domain but trying to make kerberos authentication work outside of ADS has been a pain in the ass.

Do you have iSCSI virtual drives or NTFS/ReFS mounts as iSCSI drives? I think I'll need to do some thorough research since I only know the basics about iSCSI.
 
In Server Manager on 2012, you can go to File and Storage Services -> iSCSI. There it'll let you provision an iSCSI target and will create a new VHD for you in the wizard.

I have 5 1TB drives in a storage pool. In the storage pool, I've create several virtual disks, one for VMs, one for backups, one for recorded TV, and one for ISOs. Then I mount the recorded TV drive over iSCSI from the media center.
 
I guess I'll have to figure out how to shift my data around in order to make the 2x 2TB HDDs into a storage pool.

Right now I have the following on my server
2x 2TB NTFS - everything important for entertainment (2 seperate drives)
1x 1TB NTFS - random data, standalone apps, & downloads
1x 500GB ReFS - for profiles

Data deduplication has worked wonders for me, so moving stuff around just got a whole lot easier. :)
 
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