NFS Server on ESX3.5?

[psv]

Hi All,

Is it possible to install a NFS Server on ESX3.5. If yes What are the recommended NFS Servers?

Our problem is, we have two blade servers with ESX Installed. One of the ESX Blade is attached to a storage blade( having 5 scsi disks). we would like to utilize those space by hosting NFS server on one of the ESX Server blades. and make both ESX blades as NFS Clients.

Is this is possible?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,

Vijay

[Jasemccarty]

That's "not really" the way to do it, but it can be done.

I use NFS on my test ESX box (an HP D530 desktop)

Reinout Wijnveen has some instructions (but they are in Dutch) located here:

I wouldn't do it in production though.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Running NFS on your Service console is not recommended for performance and Security reasons. There are a number of NFS exploits available. In addition, if the NFS share is made available to VMs you have created an VM Escape Exploit Opportunity. You will need to make sure that your NFS server is locked down by using individual IP address (not a range) as well as locking down iptables by adding rules to ONLY allow those hosts to even contact the NFS server. In addition, you will want to make sure the filesystem is Read-Only and monitor the logfiles for any illegal actions.

Other than that any good Linux Admin book will go over how to setup NFS. BTW, the NFS server is already installed on ESX, so nothing extra to install.

Add the appropriate lines to /etc/exports

esxcfg-firewall -e Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[Jasemccarty]

I'm going to have to agree whole-heartedly with Edward on this one.

Jase

[psv]

Edward, Jase,

Thanks for the quick response. We are using NFS Mode more for a trial purposes, till we get required infrastructure with SAN etc. so performance and security is not of a major concern as of now.

Jase, do you have the english version of the document(link) you have sent?

Thanks,

Regards,

Vijay

[Jasemccarty]

Unfortunately I don't.

I kind of did it on the fly, and used a lot of lookups on FreeTranslation.com or BabbleFish (http://world.altavista.com/)

All I can say, is... Good luck.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com