Unable to choose a Template (NFS share) to create an AppStack

[Lyghtnin]

Has anyone come across the issue where you cannot choose the template when creating an appstack which are located in an NFS share? I've uploaded the tempates to an NFS share, I can view them when browsing vCenter and went to create an appstack and after adding the path, it doesn't show the templates to choose from. Is the NFS path different than the default (cloudvolumes/app) or?

Thanks!

[Ray_handels]

When you install the Appvolumes manager and upload the templates it creates a folder named cloudvolumes and adds 4 folders beneath it. Apps, writables, apps_templates and writable_templates.

If you create an appstack or writeble it looks into the _templates folder to see if there is a template disk.

If you simply add, copy or move a file to en entirely different location the manager won't be able to find them.

You could try and create a new storage location within the manager and set it to this new location but to be honest I would just stick to the default location.

And we are using NFS storage as well but have the specified folder setup as stated above. We did create a few more writable templates, mostly because of the size it starts with, 10Gb is to small for us with our UIA + profile.

[Lyghtnin]

Ray,

Thanks for the reply unfortunately you skipped reading my question and provided basic functionally of app volumes which isn't what is needed here. I specifically stated I've already done all this - my question is 'WHEN I GO TO 'CREATE AN APPSTACK' THE DEFAULT LOCATION (cloudvolumes/apps) DOES NOT SEE THE DEFAULT TEMPLATES' = When I drop the box down to choose a template (APP/UIA/WRITEABLE VOLUME) NOTHING IS THERE. HOWEVER WHEN I GO INTO vCENTER I CAN SEE THE FOLDERS AN FILES (TEMPLATES) IN THAT DEFAULT FOLDER. MEANING THAT THEY WERE UPLOADED AND CREATED BUT NOW THAT I'M TRYING TO CREATE AN APPSTACK IT CANNOT LIST THEM FROM THAT LOCATION.

Second - I uploaded the templates to another datastore (NON-NFS) and when I choose that location the templates show up BUT WE DON'T WANT TO USE THAT LOCATION I MERELY DID THIS TO TEST FUNCTIONALITY.

I'm not on the customer site and don't have access until next Monday so I can't give you exactly what it said but during the 'Create an AppStack' there was something written below the default location 'TYPE: NFS - Shared Mode : Shared' which led me to assume that its accessible which is why I asked if the default location was correct in my last question. Hopefully this explains what I need answered.

Refer to this image (which is not mine)

https://i0.wp.com/www.ageroskam.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Create-Appstack-4.png

Assume we chose the storage location which is our NFS share the customer created - it auto populates the PATH and SHOULD ALSO fill in the template RIGHT? On ours it shows the the default PATH but the template shows something like 'None Available' and there is nothing to drop down.

Thanks!

[Ray_handels · Accepted solution]

Just a small note. If you want me to answer or help you (which is what I'm basically doing here on my free time, I'm not a VMWare Employee) don't use capital letters.

For me it seems as if you are merely shouting which is unpropper behavior on a forum, either way you put it.

And as I said, we are using NFS storage and I am able to create appstacks and writables if I select my default storage location. So it's not that NFS is unsupported.

The only 2 things I can think of is either the wrong datastore (which wasn;t the case as you stated) or a corrupted template. Did you try removing the disks from the storage through the VCenter disk bowser and upload the files again?

[Lyghtnin]

Ray,

We are here because we have (at least I have) exhausted all avenues of troubleshooting and are in need of help. When I ask questions here I spend the time to make sure I put all the details in so I can get a detailed answer and I would expect those responding to do the same because some of us are sitting dead in the water until someone on here can provide us an answer so please keep that in mind - I'm not here to talk shop, I'm here to get an answer so when I post a question and someone responds with an answer that I clearly spelled out in my question that I already did, it's quite frustrating. Unfortunately you have a lot of people on here who don't take the time to do their due diligence and they just ask basic questions that can be found in the documentation, I'm not one of them. Moving forward...

I'm not working with the customer until next week so I can't re-do the templates but I don't think this is the issue and I did not create the NFS share the 'Infrastructure' guy did so I'm wondering if there is a way to create it the wrong way on the storage system? or an alternate way they may have set it up?

During the installation you choose the datastore you created then set the //cloudvolumes/app path where these will be uploaded - then a few screens later it asks for the ESXi credentials to actually upload them. During this time they started asking if this ESXi password would be needed later because it changes (I don't know the how often).

Is there a way for them to have created the NFS in the storage system that would not make it viewable after the fact? We provided ESXi credentials and it created the folders/files but obviously when we try to create the appstack even with the correct path listed it's not seeing the vmdk. I want to make sure that it's not the way they created the NFS.

What if they create //share/ on the storage system but then appvolumes creates /cloudvoumes/app_templates making it //share/cloudvolumes/app_templates - is there some sort of permissions needed - I'm trying to think of why it would not be accessible after and to me it's a permission issue but since I didn't create the NFS I'm not exactly sure where the possible mis-step could be.

Next week I'll look into how it NFS was created etc..until then any other thoughts?

[Lyghtnin]

Ray,

We deleted the templates and re-created them and they showed up. They were the same size before/after we deleted and re-created them so it was a bit odd but it worked  - thanks!

Steven