Mounting a UNC Device

[Addammer]

I want to mount a UNC path to my ESX Server.

Here's the device:

It's a very intuitive device. I've created a share with a username and password and I can mount it on a regular old Windows box.

The command i've used to mount the device

smbmount //10.1.1.1/vmware /vmimages/tempforVM -o username=10.1.1.1
AWitek,password="password"

It returns no errors. and ls-l returns "total 0" when I have placed files on this share.

What am I missing?

Here is the long story.

We have 2 datacenters in different locations. We have a 350Gb Windows 2003 box at datacenter1 that we need to 1. Convert to Virtual 2. move it to a different datacenter and 3. Do some testing on it.

My thought was mounting this device to the ESX Server (managed by VC Server) at datacenter1 and then when VM Converter asked where to put the file I'd just put it on this storage device and bring it over to datacenter2. There is no mass storage at datacenter1. When I get this device back to datacenter2 I would just copy off the VM files to the SAN. Suggestions?

Thanks!

[Troy_Clavell]

ESX does not support firewire connections, so if you are trying to connect it that way, it probably won't work. As for USB, you may need to consider

http://www.digi.com/pdf/wp_ESXServer_AnywhereUSB.pdf

[Addammer]

Not using either.

It has a 1000Mb/sec connection.

[Addammer]

Well it's working now. I can see it in ESX.

Now

[Addammer]

New problem.

How do I get this storage to show up in the VI Client?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

New problem.

How do I get this storage to show up in the VI Client?

You can not as ESX does not use SMB/CIFS/UNC as a data store. So therefore it will not appear within the VIC.

If you are migrating VMs between two data centers you want to export the VMs out of vCenter using the VIC to your device connected to a Windows system of some sort. Bring the device,to the new datacenter, mount to a windows system and reimport using the VIC.

Alternatively you can use VMware Converter.

Check out http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/secure-method-to-p2v-across-security-zo... for some help with this.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

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