Does Vmware have Microsoft Vista properties? You know, we’ll just chuck it in at the end and pray it works.

Frantic calls to and from on Saturday night lead myself and a friend to the question, “What the hell is up with iSCSI?”

It seems that the initiator works only with a service console. In fact, the observed results showed that iSCSI was being run with the Service Console’s IP address DESPITE have a vmkernel port configured in the same networks as the iSCSI target.

Well, this is not entirely true. Vmware needs a Service Console to do the initial CHAP authentication and establishment and only then does it switch over to the configured vmkernel interface.

Why even bother with an iSCSI “interface” (vmkernel port0 if you’re going to initiate with the Service Console? In fact, more to the point, why does it split the authentication and actual iSCSI traffic across them.

Based on various forum posts, it sounds like iSCSI was a last minute throw in by VMware, and just not done completely right.

Hence, Vmware Vista.

REF: my mobile phone log with the lingfish and http://communities.vmware.com/thread/209361