After setting up the system for Intel® Ethernet iSCSI Boot with two ports connected to a target and successfully booting the system, if you later try to boot the system with only the secondary boot port connected to the target, Microsoft Initiator will continuously reboot the system.
To work around this limitation follow these steps:
In a Windows* installation, if you move the iSCSI adapter to a PCI slot other than the one that it occupied when the drivers and MS iSCSI Remote Boot Initiator were installed, then a System Error may occur during the middle of the Windows Splash Screen. This issue goes away if you return the adapter to its original PCI slot. We recommend not moving the adapter used for iSCSI boot installation. This is a known OS issue.
If you have to move the adapter to another slot, then perform the following:
If the driver for the device in use for iSCSI Boot is uninstalled via Device Manager, Windows will blue screen on reboot and the OS will have to be re-installed. This is a known Windows issue.
During uninstallation all other Intel Network Connection Software is removed, but drivers for iSCSI Boot adapters that have boot priority.
A workaround for this issue is to change the following registry value to "0":
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\IOATDMA\Start
Only change the registry value if iSCSI Boot is enabled and if you want I/OAT offloading. A blue screen will occur if this setting is changed to "0" when iSCSI Boot is not enabled. It must be set back to "3" if iSCSI Boot is disabled or a blue screen will occur on reboot.
If you are using two Intel® PRO/1000 PT Server Adapters in two PCI Express x8 slots of a rack mounted Xeon system, Windows installation can be done only via a local HDD procedure.
If an iSCSI Boot port CHAP user name and secret do not match the target CHAP user name and secret, Windows Server 2008 may blue screen or reboot during installation or boot. Ensure that all CHAP settings match those set on the target(s).
If you are performing an F6 Windows without a Local Disk installation, do not use Standby Mode.
If you perform a WDS installation and attempt to manually update drivers during the installation, the drivers load but the iSCSI Target LUN does not display in the installation location list. This is a known WDS limitation with no current fix. You must therefore either perform the installation from a DVD or USB media or inject the drivers on the WDS WinPE image.
Microsoft has published a knowledge base case explaining the limitation
in loading drivers when installing with iSCSI Boot via a WDS server.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960924
Teaming is not supported with iSCSI Boot. Creating a team using the primary and secondary iSCSI adapters and selecting that team during the Microsoft initiator installation may fail with constant reboots. Do not select a team for iSCSI Boot, even if it is available for selection during initiator installation.
For load balancing and failover support, you can use MSFT MPIO instead. Check the Microsoft Initiator User Guide on how to setup MPIO.
Do not set LAA on ports with iSCSI Boot enabled.
An F6 installation may fail during the reboot in step 10 of “Installing Windows 2003 without a Local Disk” because of a conflict between the Intel F6 driver, the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator and the following EMC target model firmware versions:
AX4-5 arrays: 02.23.050.5.705 or higher
CX300, CX500, CX700, and CX-3 Series arrays: 03.26.020.5.021 or higher.
CX-4 Series arrays: 04.28.000.5.701 or higher, including all 04.29.000.5.xxx revisions.
To avoid the failure, ensure that the secondary iSCSI port cannot reach the target during the reboot in step 10.
This issue is caused by the limited support for Large Send Offload (LSO) in this Operating System. Please note that if ISCSI traffic is required for Windows 2003 Server R2, LSO will be disabled.
If a device is not set to primary but is enumerated first, the BIOS will still use that device's version of iSCSI Boot. Therefore the user may end up using an earlier version of Intel® Ethernet iSCSI Boot than expected. The solution is that all devices in the system must have the same version of iSCSI Boot. To do this the user should go to the Boot Options Tab and update the devices' flash to the latest version.
To establish an iSCSI session using IPv6 and jumbo frames with Dell EqualLogic arrays, TCP/UDP checksum offloads on the Intel iSCSI adapter should be disabled.
iSCSI over DCB (priority tagging) is not possible on the port on which VMSwitch is created. This is is by design in Microsoft* Windows Server* 2012.
The iSCSI for Data Center Bridging (DCB) feature uses Quality of Service (QOS) traffic filters to tag outgoing packets with a priority. The Intel iSCSI Agent dynamically creates these traffic filters as needed on networks using IPv4 addressing.
The iSCSI for Data Center Bridging (DCB) feature uses Quality of Service (QOS) traffic filters to tag outgoing packets with a priority. The Intel iSCSI Agent dynamically creates these traffic filters as needed for Windows Server 2008 R2 and later.
To establish an iSCSI session using IPv6 and jumbo frames with Dell EqualLogic arrays, TCP/UDP checksum offloads on the Intel iSCSI adapter should be disabled.
These error messages do not indicate a block in login or booting and may safely be ignored.
Linux Channel Bonding has basic compatibility issues with iSCSI Boot and should not be used.
In an iBFT system using RHEL 5.2, Anaconda does not automatically start networking upon installation. The user has to manually bring up networking through a console. Please refer to the RedHat documentation for details on how to manually force up the network.
RHEL 5.2 does not support CHAP during installation time. If you use CHAP authentication on the target, please disable CHAP during installation and enable it after the installation is complete.
On RHEL5.1 systems, the wrong network interface is brought up on the first iSCSI Boot after installation. This causes the system to hang and requires a reinstallation at the very least. The workaround for this issue is to edit the init script soon after installation and change the interface you wish to bring up. We strongly encourage our users to use RHEL5.2 to avoid this issue.
LRO (Large Receive Offload) is incompatible with iSCSI target or initiator traffic. A panic may occur when iSCSI traffic is received through the ixgbe driver with LRO enabled. To workaround this, the driver should be built and installed with:
# make CFLAGS_EXTRA=-DIXGBE_NO_LRO install
From a remote LUN, iSCSI boot only works on the same port that was used to install to the remote LUN. You cannot boot from an alternate LAN port after iSCSI is install.
Last modified on 4/24/13.