iscsi_helper needed in Configure a Block Storage service node in OpenStack Installation Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and Fedora - icehouse

[Charles]

Followed the icehouse yum install guide on Centos 6.5, and could create but not attach volumes.
Eventually found that even tho we install tgtadm with yum install scsi-target-utils, we need to set:

/etc/cinder/cinder.conf
# iscsi target user-land tool to use (string value)
iscsi_helper=tgtadm

Otherwise there are errors attaching the volume to an instance.

-----------------------------------
Built: 2014-09-19T07:47:58 00:00
git SHA: 7241eb0fbd6dedac9007a28863fe7dcbf361e96f
URL: http://docs.openstack.org/icehouse/install-guide/install/yum/content/cinder-node.html
source File: file:/home/jenkins/workspace/openstack-manuals-tox-doc-publishdocs/doc/install-guide/section_cinder-node.xml
xml:id: cinder-node

[Matt Kassawara (ionosphere80)]

Can you paste the contents of the /usr/share/cinder/cinder-dist.conf file?

[Charles (cswiger)]

Sure - After filing this bug I realized the major problem was probably the change from tgtadm in icehouse instructions to the targetcli lioadm being used in juno and trunk. The version of the package in the centos repo is openstack-cinder-2014.1.3-1.el6.noarch.rpm.

Here is the contents of /usr/share/cinder/cinder-dist.conf:

[DEFAULT]
logdir = /var/log/cinder
state_path = /var/lib/cinder
lock_path = /var/lib/cinder/tmp
volumes_dir = /etc/cinder/volumes
iscsi_helper = lioadm <------------------------------------- oh no! I installed scsi-target-utils, not targetcli !!
sql_connection = mysql://cinder:cinder@localhost/cinder
rootwrap_config = /etc/cinder/rootwrap.conf
auth_strategy = keystone

[keystone_authtoken]
admin_tenant_name = %SERVICE_TENANT_NAME%
admin_user = %SERVICE_USER%
admin_password = %SERVICE_PASSWORD%
auth_host = 127.0.0.1
auth_port = 35357
auth_protocol = http

[Matt Kassawara (ionosphere80)]

Are you using Icehouse packages with the Icehouse installation guide... or some variation?

[Charles (cswiger)]

Following the instructions for icehouse yum install to the letter, as it's my first OS install from the individual packages.

From http://docs.openstack.org/icehouse/install-guide/install/yum/content/cinder-node.html

did:

# pvcreate /dev/sdb (mine was sdc, as sdb was used for the glance image store)
# vgcreate cinder-volumes /dev/sdb (sdc)

added filters to /etc/lvm/lvm.conf:
filter = [ "a/sda1/", "a/sda2/", "a/sdb/", "a/sdc/", "r/.*/" ]

Install the packages from repo /etc/yum.repos.d/rdo-release.repo
[openstack-icehouse]
name=OpenStack Icehouse Repository
baseurl=http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/openstack/openstack-icehouse/epel-6/

# yum install openstack-cinder scsi-target-utils

do all the config steps which does NOT touch the commented out: iscsi_helper = tgtadm - you can search the page and not find it, then start it:

# service openstack-cinder-volume start
# service tgtd start

At that point you can create volumes but cannot attach them to an instance, just get this error and many others. In desperation I just uncommented '# iscsi_helper = tgtadm', restarted, and it worked! Hence the bug report, as a newbie like me, following the instructions exactly, gets stuck.

2014-10-29 17:33:48.859 17088 ERROR oslo.messaging._drivers.common [req-f8497db4-315e-4c14-b5c2-ff34b296cdda 2b08e
202295b4a7dbd987920ce14c5cb 0a907f14e64545208a4fd026d5a77bb4 - - -] ['Traceback (most recent call last):\n', ' Fi
le "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/oslo/messaging/rpc/dispatcher.py", line 133, in _dispatch_and_reply\n inco
ming.message))\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/oslo/messaging/rpc/dispatcher.py", line 176, in _disp
atch\n return self._do_dispatch(endpoint, method, ctxt, args)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/osl
o/messaging/rpc/dispatcher.py", line 122, in _do_dispatch\n result = getattr(endpoint, method)(ctxt, **new_args
)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cinder/volume/manager.py", line 790, in initialize_connection\n
 volume)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cinder/volume/drivers/lvm.py", line 525, in create_export\n
    return self._create_export(context, volume)\n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cinder/volume/driver
s/lvm.py", line 534, in _create_export\n data = self.target_helper.create_export(context, volume, volume_path)\
n', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cinder/volume/iscsi.py", line 53, in create_export\n chap_auth)\n
', ' File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cinder/brick/iscsi/iscsi.py", line 542, in create_iscsi_target\n r
aise exception.ISCSITargetCreateFailed(volume_id=vol_id)\n', 'ISCSITargetCreateFailed: Failed to create iscsi targ
et for volume volume-e62c9ee7-a0c1-4770-9b0a-aaec9972a677.\n']

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Fix proposed to branch: stable/icehouse
Review: https://review.openstack.org/136073

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Reviewed: https://review.openstack.org/136073
Committed: https://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/openstack-manuals/commit/?id=17490d2fba470e4ff81e69d85c015598a7b7585f
Submitter: Jenkins
Branch: stable/icehouse

commit 17490d2fba470e4ff81e69d85c015598a7b7585f
Author: Matthew Kassawara <email address hidden>
Date: Thu Nov 20 11:33:37 2014 -0600

    Explicitly configure cinder iSCSI service

    Explicitly configure cinder on RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and possibly
    SLES/openSUSE to use 'tgtadm' iSCSI service on storage nodes.

    Change-Id: I836dfe27d9c0c74f925d661723c8480478ad29c3
    Closes-Bug: #1387430