ESX3.5 - NAS Datastore inactive on reboot

[kehall]

Hi,

Upgraded one of our hosts from 3.0.2 to 3.5 and patched up with the (currently) 4 critical patches.

The host in VI client (VC or directly to host) shows NFS datastores as inactive.

Vmotion is unable to move VMs to this host.

Double clicking on the NFS datastore opens up and shows the VM data fine.

Refresh in VI (either on the network page or right click on the datastore) doesn't fix - it may update the free space but remains "inactive" and greyed out.

On the service console, vdf shows the mounts just fine, and I can enter into the /vmfs/volumes/[datastore] folder and read/write just fine.

The only way to regain connectivity is to delete the NFS datastore mounts and re-add (a time consuming process). Then it works again until the next reboot and they're inactive once more!

This is connected to an NFS export on a NetApp filer - and I've not seen this issue with the other 3.0.x hosts. I've searched logs in /var/log/ for nfs, nas but find nothing of much interest (but not really sure where to look).

Any ideas?

Regards,

Keith.

[mhanby]

Ditto, we are also having this same issue on our ESXi 4.0 vSphere managed servers. I use NFS datastores for things like storing ISO files, so they aren't mission critical. It is, however, a PITA when the NFS mounts go inactive due to an NFS server reboot.

Status -> Normal yet Inactive

I haven't had time to upgrade the servers to 4.1 yet, hoping this is fixed in that release.

[stormlight]

Same Problem same NAS, Synology RS810RP+ Would love to talk to you via email about perf of this device as well as getting this resolved. I am opening a case with Synology and Vmware.

[RobAtHomeNet]

We've, for the time being, stopped using that Synology for an NFS share. Our DBA needed a dumping ground for DB backups... Anyway, I've got one host upgraded to 4.1 and the rest to be done next week. Once that happens, I plan on playing with NFS again. As stated before, there were to be improvements with NFS support in 4.1. I've already set up a FreeNAS VM on another host. Though I doubt I'll get the throughput, I merely want to test this reboot problem to see if the VMs, residing on the NFS share, are available after a reboot of the host and/or the NFS share. After all, what good is an NFS share if it can only be used once and the you lose it when it or the host reboots!?

By the way (and a bit off-topic), did you get the add-on for the RS810RP+? We got the combo which came with the RX410 - adding an additional 4 HDDs spindles.

[athlon_crazy]

There problem far from over. Tested and faced same problem on vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 4.1

[RobAtHomeNet]

Great! Can't wait to see what our setup does. Curious why they can't seem to get this taken care of...

[RobAtHomeNet]

Okay, I finally got around to some more NFS testing. Since our Synology has been re-purposed for other things, I had to find a rather unorthodox way of going about it.

What I did:

I loaded up a FreeNAS guest on one of our ESXi hosts. I then created the NFS share & mounted it on two other ESXi hosts. I then loaded up an Ubuntu 10.10 guest and had it use the NFS datastore. I tested vMotion & worked fine with the NFS setup I had.

Testing:

Before, with the Synology, if either of the two sides (NFS or the host) went down, I'd never get them to sync back up and the datastore/guests would stay inaccessible. Though I couldn't take down hosts today, I was able to reboot the FreeNAS guest. I did a clean shutdown of the Ubuntu guest. Then I cleanly rebooted the FreeNAS guest. Though the datastore and Ubuntu guest were tagged with inaccessible, those tags went away soon after FreeNAS came online. Then, the Ubuntu guest booted just fine. That was the "planned reboot of the NFS datastore" scenario. The other scenario I could test was the unplanned reboot of the NFS datastore. That was just as easy as rebooting FreeNAS while the Ubuntu guest remained online. Obviously, that broke things... However, all I had to do was make sure FreeNAS was online and then reboot the Ubuntu guest and things were back to normal...

I know this wasn't an apples to apples comparison but it was the best I could do since my Synology was re-purposed. I'm pleased with these tests thus far.... We're currently looking into Abereen's NAS565LX and I'm waiting to hear back from BluArc to see what they have to offer.

2010-10-14

1052 EDT