Is it possible to install/setup NFS Server services on ESX in the SC?
If so, then could someone export an NFS share from an ESX with lots of local disk to be used as shared volumes?
This is for a temporary test environment and we are scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel.
Obviously ONLY for home use or test/dev in non-production environment.
cp /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-37.0.2.ELvmnix /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-37.0.2.ELvmnix.BAK
cd /usr/src/linux-2.4
make mrproper
vi configs/kernel-2.4.21-i686-vmnix.config
Change: # CONFIG_NFSD_TCP is not set
to: CONFIG_NFSD_TCP=y
vi Makefile
....change the string ELcustom to ELvmnix in the "EXTRAVERSION" part
make oldconfig
make dep
make clean
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-37.0.2.ELvmnix
and reboot!
Sample etc/exports file
/VM_Folder *(rw,sync,no_root_squash)
You'll need to configure the firewall to permit TCP port 2049 to the service console, and you'll have to enable the NFS server and portmap daemons as well.
Enjoy.
Paul
Need to recompile the kernel, eh? It doesn't look too hard by the steps you list. I'll probably give it a try tomorrow and let you know how it goes.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Given the option of recompiling the kernel, we are going to scrape up a hand-me-down server to act as a NFS server instead.
But thank you very much, I may want to try that in the future.
Brilliant. Thank you Paul. This is exactly what I was looking for. I posted messages all over the place trying to figure this out.
Thanks again!
Was anyone here able to perform kernel rebuild on 3.0.1 pathed to 42829 ESX server?
I get numerous failures from lots of modules after restart and ESX is simply not functional after that. There is either some trick in the configuration or some src is not included. I just do not know what else can be possibly wrong with such simple process.
Message was edited by:
utkinpol
Ok so I tried this, call me desparate. After the recompile etc, I do not see nfs in /proc/filesystems.
nodev rootfs
nodev bdev
nodev proc
nodev sockfs
nodev tmpfs
nodev shm
nodev pipefs
ext3
ext2
nodev ramfs
iso9660
nodev devpts
nodev vmfs
nodev usbdevfs
nodev usbfs
nodev autofs
I assume something went wrong with the compile?
I'm curious - why don't you just setup a small Linux VM to be your NFS server?
That would be too easy. No, honestly, this is no where near recommended or supported. I have a USB drive, no support for VMFS, that I wanted to give to the ESX host as a VMFS datastore. So I read that you can give the COS NFS server capabilites and then feed the USB partition back to the ESX host via NFS. I wanted to get rid of the overhead of having a running NFS VM. I have done the same with iSCSI in a VM and its just another VM that has to run, and I only have 2GB of RAM.
I am getting somewhere but not there yet. I now see nfs in /proc/filesystem after running insmod nfs. I also started portmap and the nfs and nfsd service.
The problem I have now is that no hosts can see my NFS mount. Windows hosts or the ESX host. Here is my /etc/exports file
/root/export 192.168.0.0/24(rw,no_root_squash,sync)
Any NFS gurus out there?
personally, I would setup a desktop, throw in a 750GB drive whatever you have laying around and then use either
I may do that, just wanted to avoid another (powered on) machine in my house.
heh I hear you there...I have about 5 of them including my ESX test box...
What i did was go out and buy a dell 2610sa controller off ebay. SATA controller that esx sees as scsi. Nto fast, but I am currently running about 20 vm's on a 2 socket/dual core box without much trouble.
"Obviously ONLY for home use or test/dev in non-production environment."
Now i know why... recompiling my kernel somehow broke the vmxnet_console module on my ESX 3.0.1 server...
\# esxcfg-vswif -l
...
...
insmod: vmxnet_console: no module by that name found
ERROR: Unable to retrieve information about vswif0
Any suggestions on how I get this module back? Or if all else fails I might have the rebuild the ESX server...