To get around this, I created a new small virtual machine running Ubuntu Server 11.10, added a USB controller and the USB device (external drive) to the VM in vSphere, set the drive to mount at startup of the machine, configured it as a NFS share and then added the NFS share as a datastore in vSphere. The steps I followed are shown below:

Setting ESXi to pass the connected USB drive to the virtual machine
After creating the new VM containing Ubuntu Server and connecting the USB external hard drive to my ESXi server, it is necessary to tell ESXi which VM it should connect this USB device to.

• Right click on the VM and select Edit Settings…
• On the Hardware tab click Add… and choose USB Controller as the Device Type. Controller type can be left as xHCI.
• Click Add… again and choose USB Device, the external hard drive should be listed as a host USB device.
• This USB hard drive can now be accessed by your new VM.

Setting the USB drive to mount at startup of the virtual machine
If you are using Ubuntu Server as I am, the USB drive will not mount automatically. In order to get the device to mount automatically every time the VM starts, add an entry to the fstab file that stores details about the static file system. This assumes that the drive has been partitioned already (see guide for Ubuntu here).

• On the VM: create a folder at the point you wish to mount your drive, I used /media/WD-NFS, and set permissions to 777.
• Find the unique identifier for your drive using blkid in the terminal and note the UUID.
• Open the file /etc/fstab.
• Enter a new line at the bottom of this file that looks something like this:
  UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /media/WD-NFS ext4 defaults 0 0
  Where the first item is the UUID of the drive copied in a previous step, the second item is the file path of the mount point folder created in a previous step and the third item is the file system used on the drive. For a more detailed explanation of the fstab file see the Ubuntu documentation here.
• If you now restart the VM the USB drive should be mounted at /media/WD-NFS

Configuring the drive as an NFS share
This section follows the same general instructions as the Ubuntu documentation found here except that we have already mounted our drive.

• Install the NFS server: apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
• In the file /etc/default/nfs-kernel-server set NEED_SVCGSSD=no
• In the file /etc/default/nfs-common set NEED_IDMAPD=yes and NEED_GSSD=no
• In the file /etc/exports add the following line:
  /media/WD-NFS 192.168.1.0/24(rw,nohide,insecure,no_subtree_check,async)
  Where the first item is the file path of the mount point of your drive and the second is the network address with network prefix that specifies the local network this drive will be shared on. For a more detailed explanation of the exports file see the documentation linked at the start of this section.
• Restart the service: /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart

Adding the NFS share as a datastore in vSphere
Back in vSphere, the USB hard drive being shared over NFS can be added as a datastore.

• Select your host server in the Inventory list and open the Configuration tab.
• In the Hardware list select Storage and click Add Storage…
• Select Network File System as the storage type.
• For the server, enter the IP address/name of the VM you mounted your USB drive to
• For the folder, enter the full path to the NFS share on that machine (in this case /media/WD-NFS)
• Finish the wizard.

The USB drive should now be shared using NFS and listed as a datastore in vSphere. Now you are able to browse both your VSXi datastore and the USB drive datastore (and also copy files between the two).

The solution I created uses the following:

• Xubuntu 11.10 for the guest OS as I am familiar with Ubuntu but prefer lightweight
• Deluge 1.3.3 for the torrent software as it comes with the ability to run headless and have a web GUI
• Netatalk 2.2 (beta4-1) to allow AFP file transfer between the server and my OS X laptop

What follows is a quick overview of how I got it all working, I have to give thanks to this guide which I used a lot although it is slightly out of date now:
http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/06/ubuntu-as-mac-file-server-and-time-machine-volume/

First I downloaded and installed Xubuntu in a virtual machine on my ESXi server and installed all available updates.

I then gave the machine a static IP as I would need to know the address it was using later:

sudo pico /etc/network/interfaces

And changed it to look something like this:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1

Where the ‘address’ line is the static IP I’m setting for this computer.

I then changed the hosts file to match this new IP address:

sudo pico /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1	localhost
192.168.1.100	ComputerName.local	ComputerName

Next, I installed Netatalk:

sudo apt-get netatalk

Following parts 2 and 3 of this guide, I changed the Netatalk configuration files as needed and configured shared volumes.

When it came to editing the AppleVolumes.default file I had luck getting it to work with OS X Lion by using the DBD scheme:

/home/username/SharedFile SharedFile allow:username
cnidscheme:dbd options:usedots,upriv

Continuing with the guide, I then installed and configured the Avahi daemon.

Once I had tested that I could successfully view the files on the server from my Mac, I went on to install Deluge

sudo apt-get install deluge

The easiest way to configure Deluge is to use the client GUI on the server and then connect using the web interface when you have finished.

The best information on running Deluge in this way can be found here:
http://dev.deluge-torrent.org/wiki/UserGuide/ThinClient

 
Installing VMware ESXi 5.0 on it was a surprisingly smooth process, I wasn’t even sure if it was going to work at all when I started but it ran with no errors at all.

I now use it to test ideas, practice networking techniques and play with different Operating Systems knowing that I’m easily able to swap out one virtual machine for another whenever I need to. As I find different uses for it I will probably be posting about them here.

1. Connect to Helios
2. Connect to Ouranos
3. Pack up the folder you want
4. Disconnect from Ouranos
5. Copy file Ouranos > Helios
6. Disconnect from Helios
7. Copy file Helios > your computer

Windows

• Open PuTTY
• Connect to Helios using the following Host Name

helios.hud.ac.uk

• Connect to Ouranos

ssh ouranos

• Find the folder you need
• Pack the folder up into a single file

tar -czf new_filename.tar.gz directory_name

• Disconnect from Ouranos

exit

• Connect to Ouranos with FTP, find and copy the file you just made from Ouranos to Helios

sftp ouranos

get new_filename.tar.gz

(Hint: While using FTP interactively, use the usual Unix commands for navigating the file structure, ls, cd etc.)

• Disconnect from Helios

exit

• Use a FTP client to copy the file you just made from Helios to your computer, I recommend FileZilla. Use the following as the host:

sftp://helios.hud.ac.uk

(Port: Leave blank)

• Extract your files, most common archiving utilities for Windows should be able to extract from TAR files.

Linux/OS X

• Open a new Terminal
• Connect to Helios with your student ID

ssh u0899999@helios.hud.ac.uk

• Connect to Ouranos

ssh ouranos

• Find the folder you need
• Pack the folder up into a single file

tar -czf new_filename.tar.gz directory_name

• Disconnect from Ouranos

exit

• Connect to Ouranos with FTP, find and copy the file you just made from Ouranos to Helios

sftp ouranos

get new_filename.tar.gz

(Hint: While using FTP interactively, use the usual Unix commands for navigating the file structure, ls, cd etc.)

• Disconnect from Helios

exit

• Connect to Helios with FTP, find and copy the file you just made from Helios to your computer

sftp u0899999@helios.hud.ac.uk

get new_filename.tar.gz

• Disconnect from Helios

exit

• Extract your files

tar -xvf new_filename.tar.gz