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Configure NFS storage for Proxmox VE

Contributors netapp-jsnyder sureshthoppay
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Configure NFS storage for Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) using NetApp ONTAP. Use session trunking with NFS v4.1 or later for fault tolerance and performance enhancements with multiple network connections to the storage system.

ONTAP supports all NFS versions supported by Proxmox VE. Use session trunking for fault tolerance and performance enhancements. Session trunking requires NFS v4.1 or later.

If you are new to ONTAP, use System Manager Interface to complete these tasks.

NFS nconnect option with ONTAP

Storage administrator tasks

Complete these tasks to provision NFS storage on ONTAP for use with Proxmox VE.

  1. Enable the SVM for NFS. Refer to ONTAP 9 documentation.

  2. Create at least two LIFs per controller. Follow the steps from the documentation. For reference, here is a screenshot of LIFs used in the lab.

    Show example

    nas interface details

  3. Create or update an NFS export policy to provide access to Proxmox VE host IP addresses or subnets. Refer to Export policy creation and Add rule to an export policy.

  4. Create a volume. For large capacity needs (>100TB), check the option to distribute data across the cluster to use FlexGroup. If using FlexGroup, consider enabling pNFS on the SVM for better performance by following Enable pNFS on SVM. When using pNFS, ensure the Proxmox VE hosts has data access to all controllers (data LIFs). Ensure Anti-Ransomware protection is enabled on the volume.

    Show example

    FlexGroup option

  5. Assign the export policy to the volume.

    Show example

    NFS volume info

  6. Notify the virtualization administrator that the NFS volume is ready.

Virtualization administrator tasks

Complete these tasks to add the NFS volume as storage in Proxmox VE and configure nConnect or session trunking for improved performance.

  1. Ensure at least two interfaces are configured in different VLANs for fault tolerance. Use NIC bonding.

  2. Using the Management UI at https:<proxmox-node>:8006, click Datacenter, select Storage, click Add, and select NFS.

    Show example

    NFS storage navigation

  3. Enter the details. After providing the server information, the NFS exports should populate. Select from the list and choose the content options.

    Show example

    NFS storage addition

  4. To enable the nConnect option, open a shell on any cluster node and run the following command, where <storage id> is the storage ID created in the previous step:

    pvesm set <storage id> --options nconnect=4

    To use session trunking, ensure NFS v4.1 is used and set the trunkdiscovery and max_connect options:

    pvesm set <storage id> --options vers=4.1,trunkdiscovery,max_connect=16

  5. The following shows the content in /etc/pve/storage.cfg for the configured storage:

    Show example

    storage configuration file for NFS

  6. To verify the nConnect option is set, run ss -an | grep :2049 on any Proxmox VE host and check for multiple connections to the NFS server IP. To verify pNFS is enabled, run nfsstat -c and check the layout-related metrics. Based on data traffic, multiple connections to data LIFs should be visible.

Note In session trunking, the nconnect option is set on only one of the trunk interfaces. With pNFS, the nconnect option is set on metadata and data interfaces. For production environments, use either nConnect or session trunking, not both.