NetApp Basic NFS Configuration Walkthrough with VMware

Continuing from a fresh setup of the Data ONTAP 8.1 Simulator ; this brief walkthrough illustrates using the CLI to setup a couple of NFS exports, and then using the vSphere client to mount these NFS exports to a VMware ESXi 4.1 host server

Beginnings - The 8.1 simulator starts off with:

28 disks (2 shelves with 14 disks each)

pool 0 with 14 assigned disks (leaving 14 unowned disks)

aggr0, containing plex0, and rg0 (RAID group) with 3 disks in a RAID-DP configuration (1 data disk)

vol0 in aggr0 – thick provisioned 851.48MB in size

Part A: Using Data ONTAP 8.1 CLI to create a couple of NFS exports

*This part could also be done using the NetApp OnCommand System Manager

The lines in the script below (in bold,) will do the following 10 things:

1) Assign all unowned disks to pool 0 (by default Data ONTAP without syncmirror license will keep all disks in pool0 (default))

2) Add 9 x 1 GB disks to aggr0 (so we have a RAID-DP is across 12 x 1 GB disks)

3) Create aggr1 as a 64-bit aggregate, with 14 x 1 GB disks in a RAID-DP

*Leaves 2 spare disks across the 28 disk pool

4) Create vol1 as thin (none) provisioned, in aggr0, and 7 GB in size

5) Create vol2 as thin (none) provisioned, in aggr1, and 11 GB in size

*Might find thick (volume) provisioned volume creation is slow in the simulator

6) Install NFS license

*Installing the NFS license enables NFS

7) Unexport /vol/vol2 (which gets automatically exported)

8) Export /vol/vol1 for NFS readwrite & root access for servers on the 192.168.168.0/24 network

9) Export /vol/vol2 for NFS readwrite & root access for servers on the 192.168.168.0/24 network

10) Enable deduplication (ASIS) on /vol/vol2

Copy and paste these 10 lines into your SSH client (like PuTTY) to run, or run each line in turn:

disk assign all

aggr add aggr0 9@1G

aggr create aggr1 -B 64 -r 14 -t raid_dp 14@1G

vol create vol1 -s none aggr0 7G

vol create vol2 -s none aggr1 11G

license add BQOEAZL #nfs

exportfs -z /vol/vol2

exportfs -p rw=192.168.168.0/24,root=192.168.168.0/24 /vol/vol1

exportfs -p rw=192.168.168.0/24,root=192.168.168.0/24 /vol/vol2
sis on /vol/vol2

*It is okay to run up to 15 lines via the PuTTY SSH client on Windows, any more and need to be careful; an SSH client in Linux will allow more lines to be safely run in one go (this can be explained in terms of command buffer size.)

Part B: Using the vSphere Client (connected to either a host or vCenter) to mount NFS folder

Select the host

-> 'Configuration' Tab

-> 'Add Storage...'

-> Network File System : Next

-> Provide NetApp Appliance DNS name / IP address, folder name /vol/vol1 and 'Datastore Name' : Next

-> Finish

And repeat for /vol/vol2!

Fig 1: vSphere Client - Select Storage Type

Fig 2: vSphere Client - Locate Network File System

Fig 3: vSphere Client - Mounted NFS Datastores

*Also see follow up post: Installing the NetApp Virtual Storage Console (VSC) for VMware vSphere and Using it to Optimize NFS Settings

Appendix A: Some Useful Commands for Information Gathering

aggr status = shows state, RAID, aggr 32/64-bit

disk show -v = shows all disks – owned and not owned

exportfs = check currently exported NFS shares

rdfile /etc/exports = read the NFS exports file (these NFS exports load on boot)

storage show = will show disks are not assigned to shelves

sysconfig = shows current system configuration – NetApp release, system ID, serial number, processors, memory, ...

vol status = shows state, RAID, flex 32/64-bit

Appendix B: Some Useful Links

Aarondelp.com: NetApp Setup Cheat Sheet

Sysadmintutorials.com: NetApp Data ONTAP CLI

WAFL.co.uk: Manual Pages - exportfs