Setting Up Ports for iSCSI Multipathing

With port binding, you create a separate VMkernel port for each physical NIC using 1:1 mapping. You can add all network adapter and VMkernel port pairs to a single vSwitch. The vSphere Storage documentation explains in detail how to specify port binding.

You cannot set up ports for multipathing by using vicfg-iscsi.

In the examples below, specify one of the options listed in Connection Options in place of <conn_options>.

Important The ESX/ESXi 4.x ESXCLI commands for setting up iSCSI are no longer supported.

To specify port binding

1	Find out which uplinks are available for use with iSCSI adapters.

esxcli <conn_options> iscsi physicalnetworkportal list --adapter=<adapter_name>

2	Connect the software iSCSI or dependent hardware iSCSI initiator to the iSCSI VMkernel ports by running the following command for each port.

esxcli <conn_options> iscsi networkportal nic add --adapter=<adapter_name> --nic=<bound_nic>

3	Verify that the ports were added to the iSCSI initiator by running the following command:

esxcli <conn_options> iscsi networkportal list --adapter=<adapter_name>

4	(Optional) If there are active iSCSI sessions between your host and targets, discontinue them. See Removing iSCSI Sessions.

5	Rescan the iSCSI initiator.

esxcli <conn_options> storage core adapter rescan --adapter <iscsi adapter>

6	To disconnect the iSCSI initiator from the ports, run the following command.

esxcli <conn_options> iscsi networkportal remove --adapter=<adapter_name> --nic=<bound_nic>