HacksAndMore

The new Qnap nas has also NFS service onboard, so I want try to use it as “addon datastore” for my VMware infrastructure.
I know poor performance but I’ll use it to keep CD/DVD images, test virtual machines an why not, backup.

First of all we have to check if our esx hosts can reach the NAS, I mean the VMKERNEL, not the management, so ssh into your ESX and try with

root@esxhost# vmkping your.nas.ip

If you get response you are done, if not you have 2 solutions:

• put your nas in the vmkernel’s network
• add another vmkernel

I’ve added another vmkernel, because we use the first for Vmotion and I want keep this separate.

So, open VI client, from inventory view choose “Hosts and Clusters” select the first Esx host and go to “configuration tab.”, select “Networking” then “Add Networking”.

Using the Wizard, select VMkernel and click Next. According with your network configuration, select the VSwitch that can communicate with your NAS

Give a name, IP Address and netmask (on the same netwok of NAS) to the new interface

Click Next and finish.

Try to “vmkping” and you should see response.

Now repeat these steps for all ESX hosts you have

Instruction From QNAP to use NFS on with VMware are not correct, because ESX is able to use NFS only over TCP; unforntunatley Qnap nas use NFS over UDP.

So we have to “force” the QNAP to use TCP instead of UDP…
In the configuration page on NAS there’s no way to change this; so we have to connect in SSH and edit this file:
/etc/init.d/nfs

the line to change is #132

NO_V4="-N 4 --no-udp"

Reload the NFS service

/etc/initd/nfs restart

Now through the web management we can set permission to the share we want use

I permit full access from both esx hosts to this share

So, open VI client, from inventory view choose “Hosts and Clusters” select the first Esx host and go to “configuration tab.”, select “Storage” then “Add Storage”.

Follow the wizard  for configuration:

Select “Network File System”

Fill with ip address or name of your NAS, in the Path field put the name of the share you previously defined on the NAS

Click Next and finish.

Repeat this step with same data for all ESX hosts and you are done.

N.B.

this how to require you know what are you doing.

I'm not responsible if you destroy your production machine following my instruction.

To backup entire virtual machine while are running, you have to use the VBC provided by vmware.
this is a commandline tool that speaks with your VirtualCenter and tell it to create a Snapshot of a virtual machine, then detach it and copy the vmdk files to a location.

Take a look here http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/consolidated_backup.html to understand how it work.

the sintax of the command is like this:

vcbmounter.exe -m nbd -h yourvitualcenter.yourdomain -u username -p password -a name:VMname -t fullvm -r pathwheretosave

With “-m nbd” you can backup your Vm through an ethernet instead of a FibreChannel SAN connection.

I’ve made this on a RedHat 8.0 machine… maybe you can find this useful.

This phisical machine is an IBM X series 235 with a RAID 5 server raid controller running  RedHat linux 8.0 kernel 2.4.20-8smp.

I’ve used the Vmware converter standalone on  my Debian Squeeze laptop to “hot import” this machine.

Unfortunately this tool can’t syncrhonize data between phisical and new virtual machine, so before start the migration I had to stop Lotus Domino server to have all databases updated on the virtual machine.

The migration was completed succesfully, and I’ve powered on my virtual machine but the first problem is here:

A terrible message appear instead of Grub boot menu:

“Cannot load Operating System”

Thinking about…..

Ok, grub is not installed in the MBR; so I’ve attached a RedHat enterprise linux iso to the VM cdrom,  rebooted into a linux rescue mode; chrooted to the installation and installed grub with:

me@linuxbox#grub-install /dev/sda

then I ran kudzu daemon to remove all old devices configuration (2 broadcom network adapter) and to add new (buslogic SCSI adapter).

Next I’ve to change hostname and IP address; and install Vmware tools;
don’t forget or skip this step, or you’ll have a 10 Mbps Nic and you can receive this message in console:

eth0: RUNT packet!

The only way to have a working vmware console under linux, is using “webaccess” or connecting via msRDP to a win client .

Let’s start setting up webaccess plugin.

Open you r *zilla browser and point to http://yourvirtualcenter.yourdomain and don’t worry about “usupported browser message”; I’ve made this under Iceweasel on Debian Squeeze.
Try to open a virtual machine’s console; you’ll be asked to install a plugin, but unfortuantely the plugin installation fails.

How to solve this problem…

Frist install libexpat library.
Under  Debian Squeeze (and all debian like distros):

Go another time to your virtualcenter webaccess and now you can install the pluging and open the console.