Create an Encrypted Disk on VMware

The following tutorial will show you how to create an encrypted disk on a Porticor appliance running on VMware. We go into detail, so this may look difficult at first. But the process simply consists of:

• Creating a VMware virtual disk
• Setting up the disk for encryption with Porticor and exposing it as an iSCSI target.
• Creating a VMware datastore from the secured disk.
• Using the datastore to carve out disks for your VMs.

 

Step 1: Create and initialize a Porticor Appliance.

See our VMware Getting Started article. At the end of this process, you will see the appliance's home page.

Step 2: Create a new Hard Disk on the appliance. This disk will eventually become your secure data store.

Go to your vSphere Client application. On the Porticor appliance, select Edit Settings, then Add Hard Disk.

Step 3: Rescan disks on the Porticor Appliance, so that the new disk is recognized.

Back on the Porticor GUI, go into the File Systems page, and press the Rescan button.

Step 4: Wait a few seconds and you will see the new disk, appearing as "uninitialized".

Step 5: Define the disk as an iSCSI target.
Select iSCSI Target from the drop-down list, and press the Secure The Disk icon.

Step 6: The disk is now ready to use.

Step 7: Optionally, find out more details on the new disk.

Press the Use It link to discover details about the iSCSI target, such as the appliance's IP address (also available from the vSphere Client) and the target name.

Step 8: Locate the ESXi configuration page for the relevant host.

On the vSpehere Client, go into Hosts and Clusters, select the particular ESXi host and Configuration.

Step 9: Find the iSCSI Storage Adapter.

Under Storage Adapters, you should see an iSCSI Software Adapter. Select it.

Step 10: Add the Porticor appliance as an iSCSI target.

Right click the Adapter and select Properties, then the Dynamic Discovery tab, and enter the appliance's IP as a Send Target Server.

Step 11: Rescan targets so that ESXi sees the new disk.

You will get a warning that a rescan is needed. Press Yes.

Step 12: The new iSCSI target is available.

The new iSCSI targets (a controller and a disk) appear at the bottom of the page.

Step 13: Start creating a new data store from the iSCSI target.

Go to Hardware/Storage, and Add Storage…, select Disk/LUN.

Step 14: Select the newly added storage.

Step 15: The datastore is now ready to use.

When done, you will see a new datastore created out of the encrypted storage.

Step 16: Use the secure datastore.

You can use the encrypted datastore when creating a disk for any VM. Just select Specify a Datastore.

Or you can use the Datastore Browser to examine the datastore's contents.