ReadyNAS NV+ and VMWARE ESX NFS Share

ah, i see now you have 2 nics on your device. .mmm kay, shouldn't be a problem.
Also, from reading your post, am i correct assuming you have no switch but have a line directly from NAS to ESX server?
I do advice though, go out and buy yourself a nice consumer switch. Doesn't have to be expensive, and makes life a lot easier. (you can then connect both esx servers to the same IP address, instead of dedicating each port to a server. > then you can make your dual nics work as one (don't know if this is supported though, see forums..) as well: i don't know if you can share 1 mount point over 2 IP addresses (ie: 1 nic.) maybe someone can confirm this?)

anyway, im kind of wondering what you are (planning to) doing with the ESX servers?
May i ask how many NICs they have? read up on networking in ESX, and make sure your management network can access the IP on the NAS.
test using VMKping (and not ping)

To make sure we're on the same page, i made you a quick sketch:


In the sketch, i'm only connecting your vmware kernell (ie: management network/service console) to the nas, this however, is only the first step in configuring your esx-network! Once you have that setup, make sure your virtual machine's and other network devices (laptops printers etc) are on a different network!


Goodluck!

My goal was to optimize port 1 and port 2 on the NAS so each HOST has the ability to transfer seemless. I will purchase a switch and setup it up the right way and let you know how this goes. thank you. What ill do is point 1 host to 1 ip and the other host to the second ip hopefully it will work as needed.

What ill do is point 1 host to 1 ip and the other host to the second ip

Just give the NAS one IP.. just one will do fine! Connect both esx servers to the switch you're NAS is also connected to, make one NFS mount point, and connect both ESX servers to that mountpoint using that one ip address from the nas. no need to over-complicate things by adding two routes from an to your ESX storage.

Hi,

I have a quick question for you readyNAS folks that also work with esx.

I have am trying to connect a esx 4 machine to a user share on my readyNAS box. I have created a seperate share on my NAS and can connect to the esx host fine, but when I try to connect to my user's share I get an error. It reads: Error during the configuration of the host: NFS Error: Unable to Mount filesystem: The mount request was denied by the NFS server. Check that the export exists and that the client is permitted to mount it.(I would attach the image but dont' know how). I figure that since you can't really put any credentials into esx for adding the nfs storage; that is the problem. Is there a way around adding NFS storage to ESX with credentials like for my user's share or is there a way in readyNAS to grant ESX access to user shares that normally need credentials.

-Tan

Under Security > User & Group Accounts, take a look at the "Manage Users" drop-down box and select "Preferences". Enable the "Export home shares over NFS" option.

I have that setting in place. I think I am trying to a) either connect to the home share incorrectly or b) there is some permission problem. Normally I connect to the share using my windows machine by mapping to //nasbox/username. Should I be using some other path? Once I connect I get prompted for a username and pw. I am wondering if ESX can't handle authentication? Thanks for the help.

-Tan

ESX should be able to handle authentication. I guess the draw back of using home shares is that you can't set the ESX host as a root-privilege enabled host. I don't know if this is important for ESX or not.

Hmm, the share i set up that works, doen't have root priv set. I have default access set to read/write. I guess that means anyone can connect to the share. Maybe that is the essence of the problem; the wide open share works but the home share doesn't work that requires the auth. I created the open share to test. Does root priv give complete access to whatever host ip you put in that field? So, does anyone know how to get esx to pass authentication? I didn't see anythink in the add storage window.

-Tan

Amd the solution to the problem is..
the mount you sepcify on the esx server ...
when you add the mount make sure the mount directory is /c/mountname
where mountname is the name you gave the share as per the guide earlier :-)
this certainly confused me as we normally mount nfs from the esx and something like
/mnt/mountname
anyways all sorted now
hope this helps someone :-)

There are instructions for setting up ESXi to connect to a NFS share on the ReadyNAS here: http://www.readynas.com/?p=3030

Though the NV+ is not certified for use with ESXi it should work with it over NFS. Faster ReadyNAS models will give better performance. In a business environment it's recommended to use a business ReadyNAS model e.g. ReadyNAS Pro Series device or one of the rackmount devices (1500, 2100, 3200, 3100 and 4200).