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Up to Discussions in VI: ESXi 3.5

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6 Replies Last post: Apr 27, 2009 9:35 PM by sicoffey

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ESXi NFS client appears to use "localhost" as its machine name for RPC calls?

Apr 25, 2009 7:35 PM

Novice

sicoffey 8 posts since
Feb 5, 2009

Hi,

I've been trialling using a NFS datastore with ESXi 3.5 (3.5.0 158869). I've hit a number of issues, most resolved, and I'm at least now able to add a NFS datastore and import/create VMs. However I'm seeing problems around NFS recovery in the event of problems with the NFS server (ESXi marks the datastore as inactive after the reboot, only resolution I have is rebooting ESXi server itself).

Anyway - I've been trawling network captures and I think I have a combination of a fussy NAS NFS server, but also a badly behaved ESXi NFS/RPC client. What I see is that the RPC call from ESXi declares the machine name to be "localhost" (i.e. the AUTH UNIX credentials, Machine Name value). I well behaved client should fill in its hostname there, to identify itself to the NFS server.

I'm not sure whether this is a bug in the ESXi NFS client, or is it something in my ESXi configuration..

I have checked the following on ESXi server:

~ # hostname

esx1.cl-au.local

~ # cat /etc/hosts

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

# that require network functionality will fail.

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

192.168.12.210 esx1.cl-au.local esx1

192.168.13.161 esx1NASNET

(Note - I've manually added the entry for the 192.168.13.x address, which is a NIC dedicated to the NAS. However I have tested with the NAS on the "primary" 192.168.12 address and seen the same behaviour).

I'm thinking that the NFS client incorrectly pulls the hostname from somewhere else?

Any help appreciated!

cheers

Simon

Reply Re: ESXi NFS client appears to use "localhost" as its machine name for RPC calls? Apr 25, 2009 7:59 PM

Champion

lamw 2,748 posts since
Nov 27, 2007

How are you attempting to add an NFS datastore via the unsupported SSH console? Any reason you're not going through the VI Client to do so under the Storage configurations? Is your NFS datastore being exported out with the correct permissions including no_root_squash ?

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
http://twitter.com/lamw

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Reply Re: ESXi NFS client appears to use "localhost" as its machine name for RPC calls? Apr 26, 2009 2:16 AM

in response to: lamw

Novice

sicoffey 8 posts since
Feb 5, 2009

Hi William

I am using VI Client for creating & managing the datastore. I was using the SSH access only to confirm that hostname & hosts files were as expected.

I have no_root_squash on the NAS NFS exports:

"/share/MD0_DATA/vm-store" 192.168.13.161(rw,async,no_root_squash) 192.168.12.210(rw,async,no_root_squash)

And indeed the NFS datastore can be accessed and used perfectly, until the NAS is rebooted. It is only after the reboot that the NFS 'session' does not get recovered, until the ESX server itself is rebooted (or, I discovered, I can delete the datastore using the VI Client and then add it again. Same effect, ESX starts witth a fresh mount).

These reboot & recovery problems may well be a NAS issue - but what I would like to fix, just to play fair, is the machine name that my ESX server is using in the RPC call - it really should not be localhost. Just be clear where I am seeing the 'localhost' specified, I've attached a screen scrape from Wireshark

thanks

Simon

Attachments:

nfs-localhost.jpg (178.8 K)

Reply Re: ESXi NFS client appears to use "localhost" as its machine name for RPC calls? Apr 26, 2009 4:16 AM

in response to: sicoffey

Expert

athlon_crazy 507 posts since
Oct 28, 2007

This is not only happened to ESXi 3.5. I also experienced the same problem on ESX 3.5. If you do some maintenance on NFS box or somehow your NFS box hanged, then when your restart it, ESX didn't managed to reconnect to NFS datastore.

When I ran esxcfg-nas -l, the NFS volume still mounted, somehow, in vi-client, ESX still complaining NFS volume disconnected. So, my temporary solution :

Shutdown ESX before do maintenance job on NFS box
Deleted & remount NFS volume if something wrong to your NFS box
Get most stable NFS box to minimum the impact

VMware newbie..
Zen Systems Sdn Bhd
www.no-x.org

Reply Re: ESXi NFS client appears to use "localhost" as its machine name for RPC calls? Apr 27, 2009 8:37 PM

in response to: athlon_crazy

Novice

sicoffey 8 posts since
Feb 5, 2009

Hi athlon crazy

Well at least I know I am not the only one with the problem...!

Out of interest, what type of NAS were you using?

thanks

Simon

Reply Re: ESXi NFS client appears to use "localhost" as its machine name for RPC calls? Apr 27, 2009 9:23 PM

in response to: sicoffey

Expert

athlon_crazy 507 posts since
Oct 28, 2007

Last time used tiny linux distro to be NFS server since it's easy for tweak compare to appliance. But now I turn to ESX running NFS server.

VMware newbie..
Zen Systems Sdn Bhd
www.no-x.org

Reply Re: ESXi NFS client appears to use "localhost" as its machine name for RPC calls? Apr 27, 2009 9:35 PM

in response to: athlon_crazy

Novice

sicoffey 8 posts since
Feb 5, 2009

Cheers. With the ESX server as NFS server, do you still see the same problem if the server reboots?

Is there anyone out there who knows the ESX NFS client well enough to say why it might be declaring its machine name as "localhost" ??

thanks

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