IO errors mounting a VDI file from iSCSI on Ubuntu 10.04

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Linux hosts.
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christian.charette
Posts: 19
Joined: 16. Oct 2007, 21:48

IO errors mounting a VDI file from iSCSI on Ubuntu 10.04

Post by christian.charette »

I'm trying to setup a dev environment at work.

The plan is to store the VDI files onto an iSCSI LUN, and mount it as needed from a stack of waiting host servers.

Here's the layout of the first instance I tried to get running:

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+- - - - - - - - - +                          +- - - - - - - - - - - -+
|SAN -- Drobo ELITE|                          |Ubuntu 10.04 Server xyz|
|                  |                          | VirtualBox host       |
+- - - - - - - - - +                          +- - - - - - - - - - - -+
 /LUN1ext3/winAMD64.vdi     <- iSCSI mount ->  /mnt/drobo_win/winAMD64.vdi
 /LUN1ext3/data.vdi         <- iSCSI mount ->  /mnt/drobo_win/data.vdi
The server is a Win 2008 64-bit box (or will be if I can ever launch it).
It has two VDI HDDs connect via SATA: OS disk (SATA port 0, 50 GB) and Data disk (SATA port 1, 200 GB)

However, I'm getting some errors trying to start it all up:
root@thor:~# VBoxHeadless -startvm winAMD64 --vrdp off
Oracle VM VirtualBox Headless Interface 3.2.8
(C) 2008-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.


Error: failed to start machine. Error message: VD: error VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR opening image file '/mnt/drobo_win/data.vdi' (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
Failed to open image '/mnt/drobo_win/data.vdi' in read-write mode rc=VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
Failed to attach driver below us! Unresolved (unknown) device i/o error. (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
AHCI: Failed to attach drive to Port1 (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
Unknown error creating VM (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR)
Running the GUI, I also see the following:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Exchange.
VD: error VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR opening image file '/mnt/drobo_win/data.vdi' (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
Failed to open image '/mnt/drobo_win/data.vdi' in read-write mode rc=VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
Failed to attach driver below us! Unresolved (unknown) device i/o error. (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
AHCI: Failed to attach drive to Port1 (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).
Unknown error creating VM (VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {6375231a-c17c-464b-92cb-ae9e128d71c3}
I've scanned around, and I can't seem to find an exact match for this error in the forums or on Google. I'm thinking it's probably due to the nature of the installation I've setup.

Here's the kicker: If I remove HDD #2 (data disk, SATA port 1), I can get into the boot screen (VBox). If I place HDD#2 as an IDE drive rather than SATA, I'm golden as well (which is likely my workaround at this point). However, both disks as SATA does NOT work.


What I'd like to know is:
- What is this related to? I thought it was perhaps a way I mounted iSCSI (first time I play around with this), but the fact that I can get a boot using an IDE vdi file seems suspect...
- Does this appear to be a sound architecture (host manages iSCSI target, presents VBox as vdi file), or am I better off getting the VirtualBox instances to directly access the iSCSI target?


Just to make sure, here is the command I use to mount iSCSI and the entry in fstab I use to mount the drive:

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 sudo iscsiadm --mode node --targetname iqn.2005-06.com.datarobotics:elite.tdb123456789.id4 --portal 172.16.1.3:3260 --login

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FSTAB:
UUID=d686328d-9d9c-4844-ae25-0f0e7b00845e /mnt/drobo_win ext3 noauto,rw,suid,dev,exec,nouser,async 0 0
christian.charette
Posts: 19
Joined: 16. Oct 2007, 21:48

Re: IO errors mounting a VDI file from iSCSI on Ubuntu 10.04

Post by christian.charette »

Installation of instance with 1 drive using SATA crashed by SAN. Three times.

Doesn't speak highly of the SAN, but that's what you get for spending 3k on disks instead of 20k.

I moved the guest instance to use only the IDE controller instead of SATA, restarted the Windows install, and it's looking good so far.

At this point, I'm leaning towards a VirtualBox issue, or at least some type of contention with regards to using DROBO iSCSI.
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