NFS Share for vSphere 5 Datastore

[toms88]

Im having some problems setting up a NFS share to mount as a datastore in vSphere

I managed to mount my share, proceeded to create a VM with the disks stored on the NFS share but when i started installing 2008 from an ISO it just got stuck on expanding files for ages. I assumed this was due to a write permission problem so cancelled the install which is when it all went wrong. The machine wouldnt shut down so i had to reboot the ESXi host. I deleted the NFS share and created a new one, however now i just get the following message when i try and add it again

Call "HostDatastoreSystem.CreateNasDatastore" for object "ha-datastoresystem" on ESXi "192.168.0.3" failed.
NFS mount 192.168.0.96:/mnt/VMs failed: Unable to connect to NFS server.

Can anyone help or point me towards a guide? Ive followed these steps but still get the above error. http://wintelteams.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/configuring-freenas-8-nfs-share-on-vmware-vsphere-5-esxi-5/

 

[jgreco]

Sounds like the ESXi host is unable to reach the NAS box. Hanging the ESXi host in a manner that has to be cleared via the ESXi CLI or by rebooting is common when a datastore goes catatonic in some way.

There are lesser ways to accomplish some debugging, but for quickest resolution:

If you have a FreeBSD/Linux box handy, or you can borrow the ESXi host to experiment with (use a "live filesystem CD" or whatever), check to see if there are any problems with your FreeNAS NFS share. Mount the FreeNAS /mnt/VMs on your FreeBSD box as "/mnt", then run "dd if=/dev/zero of=file bs=1048576". While that's running, go to another screen (or different vty if on console) and run "netstat 1". You should see a fairly constant stream of bytes out. A pause of a second here or there is okay, but more isn't. Substantially more pauses than that may cause ESXi barfiness.

You can do some other file operations too to get a feel for how the NFS performs; ESXi is pretty okay with slow as long as it is responsive.

Anyways, it sounds like your NFS might not even be reachable for some reason, but having ESXi in the mix sometimes stops you from seeing the actual problem easily. That's why it's good to test your NAS system with something else.

 

[toms88]

Well on further inspection of my DC this morning my DNS service and AD have totally died on me. DNS is no longer running, and it wont start and ive got errors left right and centre on AD. Il takes a guess that while my DNS is down ESXi wont be able to resolve the Freenas NFS. A blessing in disguise as i wanted to redo it all anyway. Oh well, looks like some long evenings this week!

EDIT: I think this Freenas NFS share / ESXi is the reason my Server keeled over....everything was working perfectly until that point!

 

[campbela]

EDIT: I think this Freenas NFS share / ESXi is the reason my Server keeled over....everything was working perfectly until that point!

In the early days, I managed to screw up my DC's AD config by putting in the wrong values into FreeNAS when I was trying to sync it with AD.

 

[pirateghost]

In the early days, I managed to screw up my DC's AD config by putting in the wrong values into FreeNAS when I was trying to sync it with AD.

i took down an entire AD by doing just that....

glad it was in a lab and not production ;)

 

[toms88]

Oh right, so my idea that FreeNas ruined everything is fairly well supported looking at what you guys said! Thoroughly annoying! Ive got a day off work tomorrow to rebuild EVERYTHING so i will be very careful when i come to setup FreeNas again. Fingers crossed

 

[jgreco]

I guess the question is, why would you be setting up FreeNAS as a DC in order to serve NFS? The whole DC/AD thing seems fragile like a house of cards, and integrating FreeNAS into such an environment should probably only be done if you actually need it.

Also, for NFS, generally speaking, the use of hostnames is not recommended unless your deployment is so large as to make it nearly unavoidable, but even then, the utility of hostnames is questionable.

 

[pirateghost]

dont think he ever said setup FreeNAS as a DC.

in order to get AD authentication (for the windows shares), you have to add it to the domain, and it CAN mess up your entire domain if you are not careful. I have done exactly this before.

 

[cyberjock]

I'm very curious to know more about how the DC is being corrupted by FreeNAS. Once its added to the domain I'm sure it doesn't have permission to do crazy things like remove other workstations/server or delete users. So I'm very curious how this would happen unless you are making FreeNAS' root account identical to the domain admin account.

 

[campbela]

Oh right, so my idea that FreeNas ruined everything is fairly well supported looking at what you guys said! crossed

I wouldnt necessarily say that FreeNAS ruined it, after all, its just doing what you asked it to do.

In my defence, it was in the very early days of FreeNAS 8 and the information on what to put in the various fields of the AD integration screen was a bit vague but at the end of the day it was me that told FreeNAS to do what it did.

I think that a number of people have had the same problem and that the screen was changed to make it more obvious (I havent tried again since I screwed mine up as I only have a few user). I think there is also a guide on what to enter in the various fields somewhere on this forum.

I am by no means an AD expert (in fact, I probably dont really need it so shouldnt be using it, I was just playing/experimenting when I set it up). When I screwed mine up I attempted to recover it but nothing seemed to be working. In the end I decided to build a brand new DC. While I was in the process of building a new DC (over a few days), everything seemed to be back in the original DC.

 

[survive]

Hi noobsauce80,

The problem is with some wording in the AD configuration screen on FreeNAS. If you put the wrong thing (get host & domain mixed up) and enable the AD service you will wind up breaking AD.

-Will