Accessing FreeNAS box from ESXi

jimphreak

jimphreak

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 27, 2012
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All my guest OS ISO's and other related software is stored on my FreeNAS storage server. Is there a simple way to access my storage server from within ESXi so I can install guest OS's other than NFS shares (which didn't work out so well when I tried it).
 
Vader said:
What is the issue that you can't use NFS? I use FreeNAS for my Nested Labs storage using NFS with zero issues.

Try this guide:


http://www.vmwareandme.com/2013/10/guide-configuring-freenas-8-nfs-share_23.html
Click to expand...

Thanks for that guide, I didn't realize I had to map using the root user. Couldn't figure out where on ESXi to enter different credentials.

However (and I guess this is my own issue with not knowing FreeNAS that well) none of my data shows up when mapping the NFS share. I see the directories but no files are in them. All my data was copied to my FreeNAS box through CIFS shares. I'm guessing this is a permissions issue but can I do anything about since the volume is already shared via CIFS?
 
Yes but wouldn't that require me copying the data from my CIFS share locations to the iSCSI LUN I create? I just want to access that data I've already got sitting on my server.
 
You should be able to - both are just file share systems over existing filesystems.

I would not use the BSD iSCSI target - it's got a lot of problems.
 
I was under the impression that iSCSI just presented you with blank block storage. I did not know you could create LUNs with already created data.
 
jimphreak said:
I was under the impression that iSCSI just presented you with blank block storage. I did not know you could create LUNs with already created data.
Click to expand...

You can't as you're correct. It has to be formatted as the filesystem of choice, which means you can't present it out (except as a ZFS/NTFS/whatever it might have been before) lun, effectively exporting an existing block filesystem out, which isn't what you have. It would show up not as a datastore, but as a whatever disk in the OS.

To explain better - in theory, if I had an EXT3 disk on linux (filesystem on LVM or the like), I could export that as a block device to another linux host to read it... but that's not what you want to do for ESX, as it'd want to format it with VMFS. And it's not the easiest thing to do either, as most places ~don't~ want to do that either :p
 
Right. So I'm left where I started...trying to access my FreeNAS box via NFS but for whatever reason when I map the NFS share I don't see my files.
 
jimphreak said:
Right. So I'm left where I started...trying to access my FreeNAS box via NFS but for whatever reason when I map the NFS share I don't see my files.
Click to expand...

are they in the same folder you shared?
What's the user permissions on them?
 
I have one ZFS volume with multiple datasets. All the data in those datasets were created via CIFS shares. If I access the same datasets via NFS none of the files show up.

I'm thinking it is indeed permissions because I'm not versed in settings Unix permissions.

I've got the NFS share as follows:

Authorized networks: 192.168.2.0/22
All Directories: Yes
Mapall User: test
Mapall Group: wheel
Path: /mnt/ZFSVDEV1


Volume Permissions:

Owner (user): test
Owner (group): wheel
Mode: Owern and Group have both Read/Write permission
Type of ACL: Unix
 
Yeah, I suspect that won't work and it'll kick back a null response to the GETATTR on the file list.

Try it with root/root.
 
jimphreak said:
I have one ZFS volume with multiple datasets. All the data in those datasets were created via CIFS shares. If I access the same datasets via NFS none of the files show up.
Click to expand...

NFSv3 doesn't cross mountpoints so you have to export and mount the exact dataset that contains your ISOs. If it's multiple datasets, you have to mount them all separately.
 
Oh really? I was not aware of that. I will give that a shot as I was only sharing out the whole volume previously. Thanks for the tip.
 
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