VMware Communities: "General fault caused by file" moving files with Datastore Browser

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5 Replies Last post: Apr 17, 2008 6:35 AM by kjb007

"General fault caused by file" moving files with Datastore Browser

Apr 15, 2008 12:56 PM

KMSI 23 posts since
Mar 29, 2008

I'm a newbie just learning ESX 3.5, trying to establish some off-storage copies of new "template" VMs. I don't have all the fancy high-end stuff like Vmotion and Clone, just the basic ESX starter package with the VMware Infrastructure Client, and VMware Workstation 6. I've managed to figure out how to clone machines.

Now, I've set up two remote filestores, one iSCSI on OpenFiler, one NFS on MS Server 2003 R2. I've tried to use the Datastore Browser to move a VM folder to either of them. It gets partway through and fails with an error message "General fault caused by file", leaving a few files moved, but not the big one. This occurs on mutiple separate VMs and either the iSCSI/Openfiler or the NFS/Windows store. So I don't think it's a remote issue.

So... am I doing something wrong, or is it just broken, and is there a fix?

/kenw

Tags: backup, configuration, esx3, 3.5, iscsi, network, storage, nfs, esx

Reply Re: "General fault caused by file" moving files with Datastore Browser Apr 15, 2008 1:00 PM

RParker 5,270 posts since
Dec 6, 2006

how big are the datastores? What block size did you use? You can right-click the datastore and click properties to give you the block size.

My guess is you are moving a 256Gb + file to a datastore with 1 Meg Block size, which can only accomodate 256Gb or less.

Reply Re: "General fault caused by file" moving files with Datastore Browser Apr 15, 2008 4:15 PM

in response to: RParker

KMSI 23 posts since
Mar 29, 2008

Let's see...

I used defaults to set up the datastores. The esx-local store is VMFS 3.31 filesystem, 265GB total size, 132GB free, block size 1MB. The Windows-based store is NFS, and has 107/232GB available, but I can't get its properties. Not in the right-click dropdown, greyed out on the screen. Maybe its not relevant with NFS?

My Openfiler iSCSI test server crashed, and I've rebuilt it, but now I can't add the storage in ESX. The LUN shows up in the iSCSI Software Adapter details, but when I go to Add Storage -> Disk/Lun, it doesn't show up in the Device Location list. That's supposed to be automatic, so I've got no idea what to do about that.

So I'm thinking it's probably not a block size or file size issue, but I'd be more certain if I could get it to mount that iSCSI LUN.

/kenw

Reply Re: "General fault caused by file" moving files with Datastore Browser Apr 15, 2008 8:16 PM

in response to: KMSI

kjb007 5,476 posts since
Sep 18, 2006

Are you trying to copy vm's that are running?

The iSCSI LUN may be seen as a snapshot LUN, which is why you can not see it anymore. There should be a message in your vmkernel log stating the LUN is bein disabled due to possible snapshot. Also, since added the storage once, you should only have to rescan your HBA's, and not add storage again. For that, check this thread: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/139242

There is also some issue with NFS on 2003 and ESX, check http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942868

Reply Re: "General fault caused by file" moving files with Datastore Browser Apr 17, 2008 6:32 AM

in response to: kjb007

KMSI 23 posts since
Mar 29, 2008

Nope, not moving open VMs. And my NFS server is too current to fit that KB.

I figured out (sort of) why my OpenFiler LUN wouldn't work, though: I'd accidentally left its size set at 32MB. Once I fixed that, it showed up properly and I was able to link it in. ESX created the filesystem, so it was exactly the same as the local storage.

OF kacked in the middle of the VM copy again, though, toasting it's internal RAID configuration again. So I'm done with OpenFiler; I expect I'll try one of the Windows-based products. But it'll probably be a week before I can do anything further; got a bunch of other stuff happening.

So at this point it's not clear what the problem is. It may actually be more than one problem.

One saving grace is that I was able to back up the VMs to an SMB share via the ESXbackup script posted here, and was actually able to restore and test one of them, so I know it works.

I'm curious, though: is 1GB ethernet really fast enough to use to host iSCSI-based live VMs? Is there much of a performance hit vs local storage?

/kenw

Reply Re: "General fault caused by file" moving files with Datastore Browser Apr 17, 2008 6:35 AM

in response to: KMSI

kjb007 5,476 posts since
Sep 18, 2006

1 GB does quite well, and for all intents and purposes, you will probably not fill that pipe with just a few VM's. You could always run esxtop and see what kind of network and disk throughput you're getting as and when you're performing your operations. That being said, iSCSI is at the mercy of your network. You may want to load up a LUN and run IOMeter against it in a VM to see what kind of latency is being generated. That was the killer for me, so although I could push a lot of data through it, the latency involved made it not a practical choice in my current config, so went to FC here.

-KjB

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