Just quick one for those want to know how to create NFS datastore on vSphere.
Requirements :

• NFS v3 over tcp
• VMkernel

As for my testing purposes, I choose No-X Linux distro to be my NAS box running NFS v3 with below configuration (/etc/exports) :

/mnt/sdb1 192.168.1.55(rw,sync,no_root_squash)

From above “exports” config we knew that I will only allow VMkernel IP (192.168.1.55) to mount the NFS volume with root & read, write permission. Once finished, I just need to make sure below services are running fine :

• mountd
• portmap
• statd
• nfsd

Note:You can verify this by running ‘netstat -tulpn” command.

Now, I need to create VMkernel for my ESX host and FYI, we can do this from vCenter whether through vDS or vSS. For this example I’m using vSS instead of vDS and for reference, you can check my previous post on how to add VMkernel using vDS here.
To create VMkernel using vSS, kindly follow below steps:

Configuration Tab -> Networking -> Add Networking -> VMkernel

For my case, I add new VMkernel to my existing vSwitch (vSwitch0)

Once my new VMkernel can be ping from my NAS box without problem, I start adding my first NFS datastore with below step :

Configuration Tab -> Storage -> Add Storage -> Network File System

Then, give my NAS box IP, mount point and new datastore name as pics given below.

Within second, my new NFS datastore has been added successfully to my ESX hosts as shown below.

Note: If you having trouble to mount NFS datastore, make sure you are able to ping your NAS box from ESX host using “vmkping command”. Verify your ESX hosts “vmkernel” and NAS box “/var/log/messages” log.

ariyossss

athlon_crazy 14/10/2009 10:53PM