Mounting NFS on ESX using WD Sharespace device

[Dagnabbit]

I'm having a weird issue with my WD Sharespace device.  I use a WD Sharespace to mount as an NFS device to store all of our ISO and install files.  I have one ESX 4 cluster with 5 servers, and two standalone ESX 4 servers.  The SHarespace NAS has had some custom config work done to it to allow this to work (no_root_squash added to the shares in the exports file to allow ESX NFS to work)- and it was working fine, until about a month ago.  I did an upgrade to the Sharespace NAS, and after the reboot (and reestablishing the no_root_squash in the exports file), I found I could not mount the NFS shares on the NAS to any server in the ESX cluster.  I get

"Create NAS datastore: server1.company.local: Error during the configuration of the host: Cannot open volume: /vmfs/volumes/a4e52396-dcdec3f8"

I do not get this error on the two standalone ESX servers, I was able to mount the NFS shares just fine.

I've gone through and checked the security profiles- they all seem correct, NFS client is allowed.

During troubleshooting, I traced the volume that ESX said it couldn't open.  Found out what it was, migrated all VM's from it, and then removed the data store from the system.  I get the same error, different data store.  It seems that the last data store gets a volume ID with only two sets of characters (the rest have four (like 4d3e6612-a6616638-0e9d-001b211632b5).  Not sure how it's related- I get the same kind of listing on the standalone ESX servers, and the NFS share mounted just fine.

I checked the hosts.allow file, it lists the servers in the cluster, as well as the standalone servers.  hosts.deny has one line, "portmap:ALL".

Any clues?

[DSTAVERT]

Try using a different name for the NFS datastore name when you add it. If the old name was nfs-datastore use nfs-datastore1. You may also try changing the share name as well if that still doesn't work.

[Dagnabbit]

I've changed the name of the NAS (and changed the name entry on our DNS servers), changed the name of the share on the NAS, and changed the name of the share mount when creating an NFS connection in ESX, and checked the exports file to make sure no_root_squash was assigned to the new share name..  No luck, getting the same error on the ESX cluster host servers, and it's still working fine for the two standalone ESX servers, I was able to create the NFS-based data store connection on them.

[anonim1]

How were you able to mount the Sharespace as an NFS datastore? I've edited the exports file (below), but when I attempt to add it through the ESX Add Storage wizard, I get errors in the vmkernel log:

/nfs/Public *(ro,all_squash,sync,insecure,anonuid=65534,anongid=65534)
/nfs/Download *(ro,all_squash,sync,insecure,anonuid=65534,anongid=65534)
/nfs/xxx *(rw,no_root_squash,sync,insecure,anonuid=65534,anongid=65534)

NFS: 149: Command: (mount) Server: (192.168.xxx.141) IP: (192.168.xxx.141) Path: (/nfs/xxx) Label: (datastore-nas) Options: (None)
WARNING: NFS: 918: Server (192.168.xxx.141) does not support Mount Program (100005) Version (3) Protocol (TCP)
NFS: 171: NFS mount 192.168.xxx.141:/nfs/Exch status: The NFS server does not support MOUNT version 3 over TCP

My guess is the Sharespace only supports NFS over UDP, not TCP. But you said you were able to get it to work.. could you let me know how? Thanks.

[Dagnabbit]

I never got it to work correctly.  I've taken that NAS offline and replaced with an older system that works.

[anonim1]

Thanks for the quick reply. In your original post, you state "I do not get this error on the two standalone ESX servers, I was able to mount the NFS shares just fine."

I am attempting to mount the datastore on a standalone host as well, and I wanted to see if you had any additional configuration on top of the changes I made to the Exports file. Any help is much appreciated..

[JasonCP]

I notice that you are trying to connect to /nfs/Public

I have found on my WD ShareSpace that I have to use /DataVolume/Public in order to connect.  I can only connect as Read-Only as I cannot see anyway to enter the username/password in ESXi or see what user account ESXi is using to connect to the WD ShareSpace.

It makes a good, cheap ISO repository though.

[mcowger]

You cant see a user account or password to enter because the NFS protocol has no concept of users or passwords (or of security at all, really).