# Difficulty understanding how to use Remote datastore

**URL:** <https://forum.opennebula.io/t/difficulty-understanding-how-to-use-remote-datastore/3183>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [October 26, 2016, 12:03pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/difficulty-understanding-how-to-use-remote-datastore/3183 "2016-10-26T12:03:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![zac](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.opennebula.io/zac/32/4898_2.png) [@zac](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/zac)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 12:03pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/difficulty-understanding-how-to-use-remote-datastore/3183/1 "2016-10-26T12:03:58Z")

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Hello,

I am new to Open Nebula and I’m having some trouble understanding datastores and would appreciate any advice.

We have setup the front-end and a KVM node and have a quite large 30TB FreeNAS machine we’d like to use to store our cloud data on. I can mount the NFS from both the front-end and KVM node without issue however I do not know how to create a datastore using this NFS as I do not see anywhere to specify a remote host. I’ve read through so much documentation and I cannot seem to find anything in regards to a remote datastore.

Has anyone successfully mounted a remote NFS as a datastore before? What am I missing here?

Does anyone have any advice on this?

Regards,  
Zac

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**Author:** ![atodorov\_storpool](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.opennebula.io/atodorov_storpool/32/5327_2.png) [@atodorov\_storpool](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/atodorov_storpool)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/difficulty-understanding-how-to-use-remote-datastore/3183/2 "2016-10-26T12:28:00Z")

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Hi Zac,

In brief you sould mount the NFS filesystem on all nodes manually or via fstab and create symlink from /var/lib/one/datastores/ to the NFS mount point.

More details here:  
[http://docs.opennebula.org/5.2/deployment/open\_cloud\_storage\_setup/fs\_ds.html](http://docs.opennebula.org/5.2/deployment/open_cloud_storage_setup/fs_ds.html)

Your use case sound like _filesystem datastore_ in ‘shared’ mode.

Kind Regards,  
Anton Todorov

Kind Regards,  
Anton Todorov

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**Author:** ![Skymix](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.opennebula.io/skymix/32/4199_2.png) [@Skymix](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/Skymix)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 12:31pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/difficulty-understanding-how-to-use-remote-datastore/3183/3 "2016-10-26T12:31:12Z")

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Hi

You must to use a Shared Datastore.

[http://docs.opennebula.org/5.2/deployment/open\_cloud\_storage\_setup/fs\_ds.html#fs-ds](http://docs.opennebula.org/5.2/deployment/open_cloud_storage_setup/fs_ds.html#fs-ds)

At /var/lib/one/datastores you must to link to your nfs mounted dir.

Example:

I mount my NFS export at /mnt/opennebulaA and create the images and system on it.

Then link to the /mnt/OpenNebula/system and /mnt/OpenNebula/images to the /var/lib/one/datastores/0 and /var/lib/one/datastores/1

I hope helps to you…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zac](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.opennebula.io/zac/32/4898_2.png) [@zac](https://forum.opennebula.io/u/zac)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 12:35pm UTC](https://forum.opennebula.io/t/difficulty-understanding-how-to-use-remote-datastore/3183/4 "2016-10-26T12:35:59Z")

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Thank you very much guys, that makes perfect sense!