Changing IP address of NFS Datastore

[radman]

Hi,

I recently had the IP addresses of my ESX server, vCenter server, and my NFS datastores all changed.

I've managed to get ESX and vCenter migrated, but I'm not seeing how I can change the IP address of my datastores?

The VIC Datastore Inventory view shows paths like "netfs://dv11.sfb.foo.com//nfs2/ws/..." as "inactive", but I see no way to change the hostname/IP address of the datastore.

Any tips?

[DSTAVERT]

You will need to unmount the NFS datastore and then re add it.

[radman]

"unmount" sounds like a Service Console concept. Is that really what you mean? Login to the SC and unmount the volume?

Or do you mean "Delete" and then re-add from the VIC?

Once I do this, and assuming I use the same name, will all snapshots/VMs using the datastore simply connect using the name when I bring them up?

[radman]

Actually - maybe I have a different problem.

I notice that *all* my NFS datstores are "inactive", even those whose IP addresses have *not* changed!

I checked and I did change my VMKernel IP address and router properly (using VIC/vCenter in Configuration/Network). What else might be wrong?

Do I need to issue a command on the Service Console itself?

[DSTAVERT]

Have you updated your DNS server? Make sure that you can resolve the NFS server names from each ESX(i) host. Ping etc.

[DSTAVERT]

You can try restarting the management agents from the console.

[radman]

I figured this out, after researching a few other threads.

For posterity, here was the issue:

Once any datastore's IP address is unreachable, the ESX cannot mount any of them, as reported by "esxcfg-nas -l".

Also, as long as any VM (even one which is not running) has a reference to a datastore, you cannot delete it while ESX is running.

So, my solution was:

- Shut down all VMs (via the VIC)

- Put the server into maintenance mode:

# vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

- For each datastore whose address has changed, delete the old, and re-add it with new address (and exact same label):

# esxcfg-nas -d <label>

# esxcfg-nas -a --host <new_name> --share <remote_nfs_share_path> <label>

- Mount the datastores

# esxcfg-nas -r

(this will fail if any datastore hosts are still unreachable, or will complete silently if all goes well)

- Bring the server out of maintenance mode:

# vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

I hope somebody else finds this helpful (as I would have :-).

-Bob