VMWare ISO storage

VMWare ISO storage and mounting

By far the easiest thing to do is make your workstation the iso storage facility, whether you are mapped to a windows network share or using local disk does not matter.  Just enable the cdrom as a client device in VMWare vi client under Edit Settings for the Virtual Machine you want to setup.  Then restart the Virtual Host, clicking ESC very quickly to get the boot prompt.  Then click the CD/DVD button and map it to an ISO by browsing to your network share or local disk and selecting the appropriate ISO file.


sftp to the esx server and cd to /vmimages

mput *.iso # from directory where your iso's are

Go to virtual machine in VMWare and click it

Choose edit settings

Click DVD on the Hardware tab

Select Datastore ISO file radio button and browse to the vmimages folder to locate your iso and make sure connect at power on is selected

you can mount up to 4 ISO's on a single VM at a time

Reboot the virtual machine and hit escape if necessary to get boot prompt and select the CD/DVD device with the iso you would like to boot from


There are three primary options for storing ISO's.

1) Create a ISO directory on one of your VMFS volumes and store them there.

2) Create a samba mount to a Windows Server and store them there.

3) Create a NFS VMFS volume using a Windows Server and store them there.


How do I create a ISO mount point that points to a Windows Server for storing ISO files for my VM’s?

You can create a mount point inside /vmimages so your VM’s can access ISO files when needed. You could just create a directory on your VMFS volume and copy them there but this takes valuable disk space away from the ESX server. You can also use this technique to create other mount points on the ESX server if you need to copy files from a Windows server to or from it for patches and other things.

• First you will have to open the firewall port in ESX by typing in the service console “esxcfg-firewall -e smbClient”. This opens outbound TCP ports 137 – 139 and 445.

• Next make sure the Local Security Policy on the Windows Server you are going to map to has the following settings under Security options. If you do not do this you may get a “Stale NFS Handle” or “Permission denied” error when trying to mount.

o Microsoft network client - digitally sign communications (always) – DISABLED

o Microsoft network client - digitally sign communications (if server agrees) – DISABLED

o Microsoft network server - digitally sign communications (always) – DISABLED

o Microsoft network server - digitally sign communications (if server agrees) – DISABLED

• Next type “cd /vmimages” and then “mkdir ISO”  

• Next type “mount -t smbfs -o username=<local windows username> //windows server/share /vmimages/ISO” you can also use a windows domain username by typing “username=<windows domain username>,workgroup=<windows domain name>”

• You will be prompted for a password for the user account you are using.

• You can type “cd /vmimages/ISO” and do “ls” and you should see all your files. You can now map your VM’s CD-ROM using the Datastore ISO file device type and select the /vmimages/ISO folder.

• If you no longer need this mount point you can un-mount it by typing “umount /vmimages/ISO”

• To automatically have your ESX server mount this when it restarts do the following:
o Edit /etc/fstab using Nano or Vi

o Add the following line to the bottom of the file: “//windows server/share /vmimages/ISO smbfs noauto,username=<windows username>,password=<windows username password> 0 0”

o Edit /etc/rc.local using Nano or Vi

o Add the following line to the bottom of the file “mount –a”

How do I create a NFS volume on a Windows Server to use for storing ISO files for my VM’s? – You can do this if you have Windows 2003 Server R2 which has built-in NFS Services

• On the Windows 2003 Server make sure “Microsoft Services for NFS” in installed. If not you need to add it under Add/Remove Programs, Windows Components, Other Network File and Print Services

• Next go to folder you want to share and right-click on it and select Properties

• Click on the NFS Sharing tab and select “Share this Folder”

• Enter a Share Name, check “Anonymous Access” and make sure the UID and GID are both -2

• In VirtualCenter, select your ESX server and click the “Configuration” tab and then select “Storage”

• Click on “Add Storage” and select “Network File System” as the storage type

• Enter the Windows Server name, the folder (share) name and a descriptive Datastore Name

• Once it finishes the configuration you can now map your VM’s CD-ROM devices to this new VMFS volume


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