Need NFS server software recommendation

[OaksLabs]

Howdy,

I'm working on building a Xen Server cluster for my in-house servers, and I'm in need of a NFS server software solution.

I've tried http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenfs/, but it is not compatible with Xen Server (I'm going to be updating to the newer version of Xen, but I need to move the VMs to the other server, and I can't do it without NFS shared storage).

I'm doing a "loopback VM," where I'm giving it a big VHD and sharing it out via NFS and storing VHDs for other VMs on the loopback VM. The current OS is Windows 7 Professional, but as a college student I can get most Windows based OSes for free, and I could switch to linux if anyone has a good setup for it.

 

[Markverhyden]

Why would you use a Windows box for NFS? That has been a core service of *nix for more than 25 years. Just pick your favorite flavor. Personally I'm a big fan of RH based stuff like FC and CentOS.

 

[OaksLabs]

I guess that shows how much I don't know about linux. I like debian based distros, and I'm loading Ubuntu server on the VM now. (And yes, I did find a cheat-sheet on installing the service and setting up the share.)

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

I use openmediavault at home.

 

[drpcfix]

I ran freenas among other things in our office rack for a while, I found the combination of my cheap drives, random raid controllers, and whatever else made the thing really unreliable.

There is a good nfs implementation on synology NAS - even the little cheap 2 bay will do it really well.

We run some production vmware servers on a simple 4bay synology for some purposes

 

[fencepost]

I'm not actually dealing with it myself, but I believe it's FreeNAS that I've heard good things about. The setup that I know is using it isn't using "random RAID controllers" - they're using Dell PowerEdge servers (including some older ones), though I'm not sure if they're PERC6 or H700 RAID controllers. I can't answer to whether they're SAS or SATA, could be either.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

FreeNAS is a great, canned "linux based NAS" distro.....quite flexible. Has the usual NAS features, add-ons, pretty much an open source product much like what you find on Synology or QNAP NAS units.

If you want a more bare-bones lean OS...snag Ubuntu Server....and just setup shares. Like Mark mentioned...and similar to Windows...file sharing (SAMBA) NFS are the parts that deal with the networking. Just about all various flavors of *nix have it, some don't have it installed by default and it's a quick add on similar to add/remove Windows Components, and some do.

 

[OaksLabs]

If you want a more bare-bones lean OS...snag Ubuntu Server....and just setup shares.

This is the current plan. I'm just getting the VM ready (I hit the wrong template, it doesn't boot, I'll learn not to click so fast one day...).