My notes, things I have learned, and documentation I have created.

Long ago I used to use the at command quite often in a Unix environment. I would just use the following syntax:

# at now /path/scriptname

And it worked.

Now, in Ubuntu, when I use the same syntax, I get the following:

syntax error. Last token seen: /
Garbled time

The solution is to enter “at now” and hit enter. At the at> prompt, enter the full path and name of the script you want to run. Then, hit Ctrl-D to run the job and exit out of at.

# at now
warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
at> /path/scriptname
at>
job 7 at Thu Oct 30 11:30:00 2014

Sometimes, when an NFS server is rebooted or off for a while, the volume will remain inactive or inaccessible and greyed out in vCenter/vSphere. To restore an inactive NFS volume in ESXi version 5.x, after obviously verifying that the NFS server is in fact up, do the following from the command line:

List the mounted volumes:

~ # esxcli storage nfs list
Volume Name Host Share Accessible Mounted Read-Only Hardware Acceleration
———– ————- —– ———- ——- ——— ———————
nfsvol1 192.168.0.251 /nfs1 false true false Unknown
nfsvol2 192.168.0.251 /nfs2 false true false Unknown

Then, remove the volumes:

~ # esxcli storage nfs remove -v nfsvol1
~ # esxcli storage nfs remove -v nfsvol2
~ # esxcli storage nfs remove -v nfsvol2

List to ensure that all inactive or accessible volumes are gone:

~ # esxcli storage nfs list

Add or mount the storage:

~ # esxcli storage nfs add -H 192.168.0.251 -s /nfs1 -v nfsvol1
~ # esxcli storage nfs add -H 192.168.0.251 -s /nfs2 -v nfsvol2

And list again to verify that the volumes are mounted:

~ # esxcli storage nfs list
Volume Name Host Share Accessible Mounted Read-Only Hardware Acceleration
———– ————- —– ———- ——- ——— ———————
nfsvol1 192.168.0.251 /nfs1 true true false Not Supported
nfsvol2 192.168.0.251 /nfs2 true true false Not Supported

Note: You can achieve the same thing by remounting the volumes through the vCenter UI, but why when the command is so much more fun? Besides, in the UI, you might get an error that doesn’t seem to happen from the command line.