SAN FOOLISHNESS

[ehowton]

Either I was always searching for the wrong words or combination of words on Google - OR - the information is so humiliatingly basic as to not be helpful to anyone who already understands SAN topology, I present to you this, my masterpiece of trial and error (basically clinking every goddamn thing I could, in every conceivable combination until something worked.) Also, I'm the only person on the planet not running vCenter which makes it look like it could be configured verbally, "Alexa, map my SAN LUNs to ESXi."
"No problem, Eric. Done."

SO YOU WANT TO ADD SAN DISKS TO YOUR ESXi HOST LOL

ESXi HOST - ESXi 6.7u3:
12x48 PowerEdge R610 with a single 16GB dual-port HBA

SAN HOST - FreeNAS 11.3u2:
32x16 PowerEdge R730 with a single 10GB quad-port HBA

In FreeNAS ensure:

Sharing --> Block Shares (iSCSI) --> Associated Targets

Contains the Target/Extent mapping you wish to use, else even with the above the VM will not be able to see the boot disk.

Sharing --> Block Shares (iSCSI) --> Extents

For ESXi ONLY ensure 512 block size and DISABLE physical block-size reporting!

Lastly, your iSCSI disks may appear as NORMAL,DEGRADED on your ESXi GUI. This is due to there only being a single-path to your SAN disk.

In ESX ensure:

Host --> Manage --> Hardware --> PCI Devices --> "[brand] [speed] [port number] network connection" (this is your HBA)

Ensure Passthrough is DISABLED (enabling is apparently awesome if you want ONLY EVER A SINGLE VM to see the SAN via fiber not FCoE)

Reboot the whole entire goddamn ESXi host if you had to toggle passthrough.

Storage --> Adapters --> (vmhbaXX - iSCSI software adapter - online - iscsi_vmk)

Highlight that bitch and whichever is not grayed out (Configure iSCSI or Software iSCSI) click that one.

You have to enter the SAN's copper network IP as a DYNAMIC TARGET (port should be pre-populated with 3260) and when you click {ok} or {next} or whichever verbiage indicates you've completed this task and should move on to the next...

STATIC TARGETS populate with the BLOCK SHARE TARGET NAMES from the SAN :O

We all have our philosophies surrounding system administration, and mine is learning by utilizing RTFM only as a last resort. According to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1 Deployment Guide:

The boot manager GRUB 2, used to boot machines with a traditional BIOS, does not support UEFI, therefore GRUB 2 is replaced with GRUB 2 for EFI. If Secure Boot is enabled, YaST will automatically select GRUB 2 for EFI for installation.

I tried it both ways, but EFI with Secure Boot disabled seems to be the way to go.

Edit Settings --> Add Hard Disk --> New Raw Disk --> (compare hostname UUID mapping from FreeNAS)

Boot VM from attached optical media and it should jump right into Installation and know right where to install :)

WHEN YOU ADD ANOTHER PATH TO AN EXISTING ESXi:

Storage --> Adapters --> Rescan
Storage --> Devices --> Rescan
Storage --> Devices --> Refresh

Should populate with the new LUN IF THE LUN ON THE SAN SIDE has a unique LUN_ID.