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I'm currently running several virtual servers and connecting to the vCenter using the vSphere Windows client. We're connecting with to a datastore on another server which has a separate folder for each virtual server. All of the virtual servers boot up fine, but every 10 minutes (roughly) the datastore will stop showing the files. The connection to the datastore is not lost, and the folders in the base directory of the datastore still appear, but the files inside the folders do not show up. This doesn't effect any virtual machines that are currently running, but if any of them go down it is impossible to reboot them until the files reappear (~10 more minutes).

There is also an error which appears periodically (typically when the datastore is down) which says:

The storage service is not initialized. Please try again later.

The server running the vCenter is running the VMware vSphere Profile-Driven Storage Service, and this service does not stop or hang during the malfunctions. Both the vSphere Client and server are running version 5.1.0. The server is build 1364037, and the client is build 1235233. When I SSH into the datastore server, all of the files still appear correctly, with the correct permissions.

It should also be noted that during malfunctions I can add a folder in the base directory of the datastore and it will appear after a refresh, but none of the other files appear. If I create a folder/file inside of any other folder in the datastore, that folder wont' show up until the all of the other files reappear.

The server running the vCenter client is Red Hat, and the server running the datastore is Gentoo (a physical machine). The datastore is using NFS to present itself.

Any clues as to what's happening that may cause these intermittent outages?

Schiem
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  • So your datastore is running on a Gentoo box? How are ypu presenting the datastore from the Gentoo box to the vSphere hosts? iSCSI? Is the Gentoo box a physical machine? – joeqwerty Jun 30 '15 at 19:55
  • Yep, the datastore is running on a gentoo box, which is a physical machine. It's using NFS. – Schiem Jun 30 '15 at 20:08
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    This sounds like a mess. Can you add the versions and build numbers of the VMware components involved? There's clearly something wrong with your NFS configuration on the Gentoo side. – ewwhite Jun 30 '15 at 20:21
  • Also: `The server running the vCenter client is Red Hat` - What? – ewwhite Jun 30 '15 at 20:22
  • Sorry, I meant that the virtual server running vCenter is Red Hat. Don't know how the word client got in there. I'll update the post to include the versions and build numbers. – Schiem Jul 01 '15 at 12:38
  • "I meant that the virtual server running vCenter is Red Hat" - what? that makes no sense at all - or do you mean you're running an RHEL physical with something like VMWare Workstation and then the vCenter on that in either Windows or VCSA? – Chopper3 Jul 01 '15 at 12:46
  • I suppose I wasn't being clear. We have a VMWare ESXi hypervisor (VMKernel build 1065491), which is a running a virtual server (with SUSE, not RHEL, that's my bad) that is running VCSA. – Schiem Jul 01 '15 at 13:14

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