Yet another esxi build, DAS with tftp goodies.

[generalz]

About 6 months ago I purchased a server for xenserver, vmware, and hyperv training and since then I have been looking for ways to move my current storage setup into esx. xenserver at the present time sucks (for me anyways) so this week I finally did it with esx.

 

 

Server

Fujitsu Primergy TX200 S5

1x Xeon E5520   2x Xeon L5520 Quad @ 2.27

12GB DDR3

2 146GB 15k SAS Drives Raid 0 on LSI 1078 /w BBU and 256Mb (VM storage)

ESXi 5.0.0 768111 Fujitsu custom install. (I wanted 5.1 but the hardware passthrough is all messed up. PSOD at random when passing hardware through to VM's)

this was an absolute steal for 450$ BNIB, with warranty.

 

 

Storage

Rosewill RSV-R4000 Rack case

Antec HCP 850w (overkill, I know)

4x 2TB  2x 1TB Drives

 

Build

Now I really wanted to go Norco but too many reports of bad backplanes' eating drives and the price. $300+ for a case is a hard buy for me.

My second choice was a Sans Digital 8-Bay SAS/SATA TR8X+BP tower, those also range between $300-600 depending on model. After doing some research I decided not being able to replace the powersupply with a regular one if it fails was a bad investment.

 

Third choice was to hack together a cheaper DAS setup and cross my fingers that it would work when done.

 

after doing a ton of research here and at serve the home I orderd the following:

 

For the server

1 - Supermicro CBL-0168L  SFF8087 TO SFF8088 55$  Ebay I could have saved 15$ but I didn't want to wait a month for it to show up from china.

 

 

For the DAS side

1 - 2-Port SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 Adapter ordered at PC Pitstop PC Pitstop

2 -  Mini SAS 36pin (SFF-8087) to SATA Forward breakout cable 10$ Monoprice

2 -  Mini SAS (SFF-8088 to SFF-8088) $29 Monoprice

1 - Supermicro CSE-PTJBOD-CB1 $33 BeachAudio's ebay store

 

Total for parts $164... way cheaper then the alternatives so I'm glad it worked out.

 

 

 

Parts Have arrived!!

 

 

time to tear shit apart 

 

 

Goodbye to the mess I never got around to cable managing.

ECS A880GM-A2/4GB/AMD X4 945 (125w quad) aka "the heater"

 

 

Easy to cable manage now....    note CSE-PTJBOD-CB1 and SFF-8088 connections are wired. simple stuff

 

 

Time to move on to the server. It only came with 1 E5520 and I have been waiting for prices to come down, they were 100$ each last month.

I managed to snag two L5520s from ebay for 40$ each..Same as the e5520 but only uses 60w vs 80w, score!! more runtime on the UPS.

 

 

old cpu out, new ones in, and memory arranged to performance mode.

 

 

installed SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 connector and LSI 1068 card flashed with jbod/IT bios i ordered the lowprofile bracket by mistake, but luckily enough my server came with adapters

 

 

installed SFF-8088 connectors.

 

 

Finished. Honestly it was harder to vacuum the floor for the pics vs the actual work. 

 

 

 

 

Total build cost $1034

 

 

Credit to:

this forum, Tom for his hard work and specifically any of the esx posts.

http://www.servethehome.com/

 

http://www.servethehome.com/external-sassata-disk-chassis-wiring-part-1/

http://www.servethehome.com/external-sas-sata-disk-chassis-wiring-part-2/

http://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-cse-ptjbod-cb1-jbod-power-board-diy-jbod-chassis-made-easy/

[generalz]

I did not want to use plop, or deal with custom vmdks' for booting.  So I used my exsisting tftp setup + passing UNRAID usb drive to the VM.  I added an entry for unraid and to my surprise it worked the first time. 

 

Requirements:

• TFTP server
  
• dhcp provider that will handle the pxe requests. Im using IPcop, but any of the current linux routers should have support for being a proxy for PXE:  Smoothwall, IPcop, or the or the freebsd varients M0n0wall, pFsense
  
• some general linux, and log reading experience.
  
• one of the vmware NIC's added to your vm, it will not work with a passthrough NIC, well it can but its complicated
  

 

 

I have a raspberry pi and I was trying to use it for a xbmc device, but the usb is flaky on it so I have re-purposed it to be my tftp server and dropped the latest official wheezy image on an sd card. in theory you should be able to use any tftpd software that you want to.

 

follow this guide to install tftp server.

http://www.ronnutter.com/raspberry-pi-tftp-server/

 

 

here is my config mainly just to show the use of -4 for ipv4 only. the remap file in use is for booting WinPE 3.0 and not required for unraid.

# /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
TFTP_USERNAME="tftp"
TFTP_DIRECTORY="/srv/tftp"
TFTP_ADDRESS="0.0.0.0:69"
TFTP_OPTIONS="--secure -4 -m /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/remap"

 

in the root of /srv/tftp your going to want to drop whatever version of unraid you want to boot. mine is located in /srv/tftp/os/unraid

And the only files you will need are bzimage and bzroot.

 

edit the boot menu file located /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg/default and point it at your unraid files

here is my config

DEFAULT unraid5b12a
PROMPT 0

LABEL unraid5b12a
KERNEL os/unraid/bzimage
append initrd=os/unraid/bzroot

 

now your going to want to setup your router to forward the PXE requests to the server.

For ipcop login to the web admin and click on the dhcp tab.

Check the box "Allow bootp clients"

now you are going to have to create a static entry for your unraid server (this is an unusual setup, typically you can just forward the requests directly to the tftp server.

 

 

put the mac of your unraid

the ip you want to give it

the hostname

router ip address is the same that you logged into to change the settings

use your routers internal dns server.

filename sed to pxelinux.0

next-server should be the IP of your tftp server.

 

Hit add and you should have a working tftp setup.

 

I hope I didn't miss anything.

[Ford Prefect]

...cool, plain and simple...well done!

The tftp part is a nice bonus...I wonder whether a simple VM on the ESXi host could be used for that purpose?

[BetaQuasi]

Any VM running something that can serve PXE should do the trick - as long as it's early in the boot order

[generalz]

Yea, I'm on the fence about doing it because thats how I install all my OS's, even ESXi so if the drive died in the server I could replace it and be up and running again in less then 15 minutes.

 

the tftp has come in handy I use it for booting unraid, openelec, installing windows and any linux distro.

[mrow]

Just a small comment. M0n0wall and pfSense are based on FreeBSD, not Linux.

[generalz]

fixed

[mrow]

fixed

 

IPCop and Smoothwall are Linux based, not FreeBSD based. Sorry to be a pain in the ass!

[generalz]

try now

[mrow]

try now

 

Haha there we go.

 

Question about your UPS. Have you ever replaced the battery in it? I have one of those same UPSs sitting around with a dead battery but the cheapest I can find a replacement for is $80 bucks. At that price I'd rather just buy a whole new UPS. If you have replaced it before what kind of price did you pay for it?

[generalz]

Yep, the battery died within the first year, purchased a new one from eBay and its been working great for about a year now.  I would stick with it, these are nice units and better then the cheaper ups you are looking at, these are Line Interactive instead of the standby on the cheaper units that in my mind are harder on PC power supplies and don't filter out some things.

 

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/slabattery/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

 

I have three more sitting in the corner I need to get batteries for them too. the run time is awesome on these.

 

MODEL Smart-UPS 1000 XL

STATUS ONLINE

LINEV 118.0 Volts

LOADPCT 56.0 Percent Load Capacity

BCHARGE 100.0 Percent

TIMELEFT 22.0 Minutes

 

 

I have my desktop, monitor, server, and drives running on it, so just over 330w, I think it gets up to around 450 when I game.