Troubleshooting the failed process of adding a datastore from a Windows Services NFS device

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article identifies steps for resolving issues with mounting an NFS share from a server using Windows Services for UNIX.

 

Warning: Windows Services for UNIX is not a supported storage solution for use with ESX, and the information in this article is provided as-is. For a full list of supported storage solutions, refer to our Hardware Compatibility List. VMware provides support only for the devices that are listed in the Hardware Compatibility List. 

Symptoms:

• The process of adding the NFS datastores times out
• Unable to add NFS datastores
• Adding NFS datastores fails

Environment

VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x

Resolution

Note: The links in this article were correct as of August 10, 2011. If you find a link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

 

To correctly set up the Windows Service for UNIX:

1. Install Windows Services for UNIX (WSFU).
2. Copy the ESX host password and group files to Windows.
3. Configure WSFU to accept ESX host connections.
4. Share the Windows folder for NFS compatibility.
5. Configure the ESX host to mount the Windows NFS Share as a datastore.

Install Windows Services for UNIX (WSFU)

To install WSFU:

1. Download WSFU from the Microsoft Download Center.
2. Install WSFU by extracting and running the setup.exe.
3. Select the Custom Installation.
4. Choose the following Components to install:
   • Expand NFS, click Server for NFS, and choose Will be installed on local hard drive.

   
   
    

   • Expand Authentication tools for NFS, click User Name Mapping, and choose Will be installed on local hard drive.
     
     
      
5. Open the services control panel applet and change the service User Name Mapping to startup automatically and start the service.

Copy the ESX host password and group files to Windows

Copy /etc/passwd and /etc/group to C:\SFU (or the location where WSFU is installed).

 

You can get WinSCP from http://winscp.net/eng/download.php#download2.

Configure WSFU to accept ESX host connections

To configure WSFU to accept ESX host connections:

1. Click Start > Programs > Windows Services for UNIX > Services for UNIX Administration.
2. Click user name mappings.
3. Click Configuration.
4. Click Password and Group Files.
5. From the browse dialog box for both the password and group fields, browse for the password and group files that you copied.
6. Click Apply.
7. Go to maps.
8. Click Show Maps.
9. List windows users and list Unix users.
10. Select a local administrator user on the left that can be mapped to the root account and the root user on the right.
11. Click Apply.

Share the Windows folder for NFS

To share the Windows folder for NFS:

1. Right-click the local folder you want to share via NFS.
2. Click NFS Sharing.
3. Type in the name for the share. For example, NFS-VMFS01.
4. Remove Allow anonymous access.
5. Click Permissions.
6. Change the type of access to Read+Write and select Allow root Access.

Configure the ESX host to mount the Windows NFS Share as VMFS

To configure the ESX host to mount the Windows NFS Share as VMFS:

1. Verify that the ESX host firewall permits NFS traffic.
2. Verify the configuration of the network port groups.
3. Verify connectivity to the NFS server. For more information, see Troubleshooting connectivity issues to an NFS datastore (1003967).
4. Add the NFS storage.

Additional Information

Sometimes accessing the folder might fail with the error:

 

reading directory: permission denied.

 

To troubleshoot this issue, try granting Anonymous Logon access in the security tab for the folder.

Note: If you are using Veeam NFS restore share, your Windows Operating System may deny access to the same share. To resolve the issue you may need to specify TCP transport on the server while exporting NFS. For more information, see the Microsoft article Specify Server for NFS TCP and UDP Settings.

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Troubleshooting connectivity issues to an NFS datastore on ESX and ESXi hosts