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all. What I am asking is really complicated. So, I am not sure if it is even possible. It will be a two-parter.

Part One:

TLDR:

MYWIN2K8HOSTWITHNFS+AD -------(NFS)------> ESXI41HOST+AD

First, I have set up Services for NFS (a.k.a. ServicesForNFS-ClientAndServer in the DISM list) on a Windows 2008 R2 box in a Windows domain.

Secondly, I have my ESXi 4.1 host, also in the same Windows domain.

I want to serve this stuff, namely ISO files, on the Windows 2008 R2 box to the ESXi host a la NFS, but with a little security in mind using the Active Directory Mapping feature. Because I am using ESXi 4.1 that is joined to the domain, it must be possible, right? I would need to downgrade to Windows 2003 and SFU to get the very useful local user mapping feature that Microsoft decided to deprecate this guy got to work for a lot of people. Thoughts?

Part Two:

TLDR:

FILESERVER ----(SMB)------> MYWIN2K8HOSTWITHNFS+AD -------(NFS)------> ESXI41HOST+AD

If Part One is doable, is it possible to use symbolic links or mount points I configured to share some this crap from SMB, pass through my Win2k8 box, and forward to the ESXi box? We do have %DOMAIN%\Domain Computers provisioned with read access to the shares in SMB, so is there any hope?

songei2f
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1 Answers1

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Although ESXi can use AD for logins to the management interface I'm almost certain it won't use AD security for its NFS mounting simply because Windows SFU NFS isn't a supported NFS target.

Couldn't tell you about the second part but I certainly wouldn't trust what you're describing in a live/production environment, it's too ad-hoc for my liking.

Chopper3
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  • Chopper, thanks for the note. I had suspected as much from my experiments. I thought I would wait and see. Despite doing AD auth, it did create a computer object in the AD domain where I told it to. Is it flaky? Yes. But it relies on the LikeWise code, which looks like they wanted to dumb down samba IIRC from looking at some source code. Anyway, this might be too ad-hoc for your liking, pal, but you probably work for a respectable IT department that pays for things. I, as you now know, do not. Such is life. – songei2f Mar 03 '11 at 16:51