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mcrawford
Contributor
Contributor

Adding NFS Storage: error during the configuration of the host cannot open volume: /vmfs/volumes/xxxxx

I am trying to add NFS storage to my ESX3.5 host. I keep getting an error (see atttached). I have trouble-shooted for days and cannot get it to work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

You don't need to restart the management agent if you're adding it via the CLI, it should happen automatically.

Once you add and you get the successful message, can you do the following to see if it lists the NFS datastore:

esxcfg-nas -l

Can you also verify the nnewly created NFS datastore on your host by doing ls /vmfs/volumes/your_nfs_datastore

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

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

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mcrawford
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I get the following error (same as in GUI)

# esxcfg-nas -l

Error performing operation: Cannot open volume: /vmfs/volumes/8406cb04-ae37ead4

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mcrawford
Contributor
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I also checked using winSCP on the NAS server and it shows /vmfs/volumes/datastore but when i click on the datastore to open it, i receive the following error (see attached)

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

Can you do the following to see which datastore it's trying to reference:

ls -la /vmfs/volumes/

Also I assume you did not try to manually create any directories under /vmfs/volumes ? Can you view the contents of /vmfs/volumes/8406cb04-ae37ead4 ?

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

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

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lamw
Community Manager
Community Manager

You may want to take a look at your logs to see if it provides more specific message regarding the error in:

/var/log/vmkernel

/var/log/messages

/var/log/vmkwarning

Open a separate console and tail the files to see if any important messages are displayed when trying to add the NFS datastore. Do you have any other VM(s) running on this specific host?

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

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

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mcrawford
Contributor
Contributor

Lamw, this is the output

# ls -la /vmfs/volumes/

total 1025

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 512 Jun 1 14:59 .

drwxrwxrwt 1 root root 512 Jun 1 11:35 ..

drwxr-xr-t 1 root root 1120 May 20 15:27 4a12d0ec-cf6dea30-bf0c-0 0221981c049

drwxrwxrwx 1 4294967294 4294967294 64 Jun 1 11:28 8406cb04-ae37ead4

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root root 35 Jun 1 14:59 host:storage1 -> 4a12d0e c-cf6dea30-bf0c-00221981c049

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root root 17 Jun 1 14:59 VMdatastore -> 8406cb04- ae37ead4

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Chamon
Commander
Commander

It may take a while to appear even though you restarted the service and clicked the refresh button. do you

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Chamon
Commander
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Here is a thread you may also want to look at. It mentions the windows File permissions for the root user mapped to a windows user that has access to it. I have never set this up with a windows share but do you need both Share and NTFS file permissions for this user? Could it be that you set the Share permissions and not the NTFS permissions?

At the end of the above thread it also says that windows based NFS is not supported by VMware.

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mcrawford
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yes there is one dev server VM running on this host.

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Shafay2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have the very same problem with two of my ESXi 4.0 stand alone host connecting to NetApp. My ESX 3.5 U4 hosts can see the new LUN but the ESX4.0 can not. Its really frustrating. The vmhba33 path says DEAD at the vCenter on both hosts. I can ping the Vmkernal ports IP address from other hosts so I know the physical network is setup properly

I did the install just I would in the past with 3.5U4. I have not used any CLI yet.

Any one else with the same senario or is this a new "feature" in vSphere 4.0 ?

Shafay

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Schorschi
Expert
Expert

A permission issue would result in a valid connection but no read-write access to the actual folder behind the mount for NFS. I have encountered this with Windows 2003 serving NFS. I have also seen where ESXi 3.5 U3 or U4 has worked just fine with no_squash and explicit rw set in the exports from Windows 2003, and ESXi 4 refuses to mount the NFS share. I reported this as a bug in Beta2 for ESXi 4, but VMware had some trouble recreating the issue. I was finally able to get ESXi 4 Beta 2 and RC1 to connect to Windows 2003, but it was never quite right, after a reboot of either of my ESXi 4 servers, the NFS mounts would not auto-reconnect. This was also reported to VMware. I had to use esxcfg-nas from within ESXi 4 (using the unsupported shell) to force ESXi to do refresh the mounts. Unfortunately, esxcfg-nas does not have an explicit mount command, so you have to remove the mount from vCenter or the host, then recreate it at times. With RC1 the issue seemed to fade away and on ESXi 4 GA I have not seen the issue. Also, this issue I found was not unique to Windows 2003 serving NFS but also happened off and on using Ubuntu 8.1 served NFS. I think there is still a sleeper issue here. I believe i still have my configuration/setup notes for Windows 2003 NFS, if I can find them I will post them.

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jbowman12345
Contributor
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I was having the same issue. I am also running Windows 2003 R2 to provide NFS to my ESX servers. I was able to connect 2 ESX servers without an issue. I attempted to connect a 3rd and was getting the same error. I was able to correct the problem by swapping out the lower end gig e switch with a higher end gig e switch. After the switch i have not had a problem.

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Chamon
Commander
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Have you had any luck with this?

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Shafay2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Nope, no luck. After hitting the wall for a few days, I downgraded my host to 3.5 U4. Works great!

Shafay

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mcrawford
Contributor
Contributor

I am still having the issue. I have contacted VMware but they are not really helpful at all. They said

Please install a windows NFS client directly on the windows machine and check if you can access the NFS shares off the same machine. Also verify the firewall.

I already know that I can access the NFS share b/c I have connected it successfully with another ESX host. On my "trouble ESX host", I have checked to make sure the ethernet cables are plugged into the appropriate switches and not routing through any physical firewalls.

ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED AT THIS POINT!! Thanks in advance!!!!!

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Chamon
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Are you connecting through a trunked port on the physical switch?

On Jun 3, 2009, at 5:22 PM, mcrawford <communities-emailer@vmware.com

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mcrawford
Contributor
Contributor

No, the ESX server is connect to an "access" port on a dell switch, not a "trunking" port.

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sbu77
Contributor
Contributor

Shafay

Please see the following thread about connecting your ESX(i) 4 to NetApp via iSCSI. Sounds like it may be the same ALUA issue for you as well.

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sbu77
Contributor
Contributor

It would probably be more helpful if I included the link Smiley Happy

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/211369

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Chamon
Commander
Commander

Any luck?

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