In my lab, I have an OpenFiler 2.99.1 VM running on the physical host providing storage via iSCSI to my virtual hosts.
Increasing the size of the VMDK used by the OpenFiler VM does not equate to more storage shared by the OpenFiler. I banged my head against the wall for a few hours figuring it out; here’s how I did it.
- Expand VMDK
- Download GParted Live CD
- Stop anything consuming storage provided by OpenFiler
- Shut Down OpenFiler VM
- Boot OpenFiler from GParted Live CD
- Create additional LVM2 PV in the unused storage
- Apply changes
- Unmount Gparted ISO, reboot OpenFiler
- In the OpenFiler Web Interface, navigate to Volume Groups
- Add new PV to the Volume Group
- Navigate to Manage Volumes
- Select the VG, Edit the Volume, enter the new size (same as the volume group’s total space) in my case
- Restart iSCSI service
- In vSphere, view the properties of the iSCSI datastore to increase its size
What a pain, why is this necessary?
There is apparently an uncorrected bug in OpenFiler in that it will not create additional partitions on a block device. Attempting to create the PV/Partition from the CLI using parted will not accept the cylinders I provide, instead attempting to make the volume half as big as asked. – If someone knows why this is and how to correct, please comment.
In the future, if my OpenFiler needs more storage to share, I’ll just add a new VMDK, create the PV on it, add it to the Volume Group and increase the volume that way.
Brian Ragazzi 