While reconfiguring the lab with VI3.5 and a recently configured Debian NFS server I ran into a bit of a road block. I discovered the problem while configuring the ESX hosts to use the NFS exports for datastores. It seems that only one server at a time was allowed to access the exports.
I confirmed that the networking aspects of the lab configuration were set properly, and that the VMkernel ports for my storage were able to ping the NFS server’s interfaces (vmkping). Digging further, I was able to shutdown one ESX server and this would then allow me to mount the exports on the second host. This reminded me a lot of the file locking issues I used to contend with on old networked DOS applications. It got me thinking, are the ESX hosts locking in ownership of the NFS exports?
Upon digging into the advanced settings I was able to find is option (under the NFS branch):
NFS.LockDisable – 1 to disable NFS locking protocol (default 0)
I adjusted the parameter to 1 on each of my lab hosts, and this allowed them both to mount the exports.
Next steps…..finding out why the default is 0 and what the repercussions are of disabling it.
