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Troubleshooting connectivity issues to an NFS datastore

Symptoms

  • The NFS share cannot be mounted by the ESX/ESXi host.
  • The NFS share is mounted, but nothing can be written to it.

Purpose

This article guides you through the most common steps to identify a connectivity problem from an ESX/ESXi host to an NFS shared storage device.

Resolution

Validate that each troubleshooting step below is true for your environment. The steps provide instructions or a link to a document, for validating the step and taking corrective action as necessary. The steps are ordered in the most appropriate sequence to isolate the issue and identify the proper resolution. Please do not skip a step.
  1. Verify connectivity to the NFS server and ensure that it is accessible through the firewalls. For more information, see Cannot connect to NFS network share (1007352).

  2. Verify that the ESX host can vmkping the NFS server. For more information, see Testing VMkernel connectivity with the vmkping command (1003728) .

  3. Verify that the NFS host can ping the VMkernel IP of the ESX host.

  4. Verify that the virtual switch being used for storage is configured correctly. For more information, see the Networking Attached Storage section of the ESX Configuration Guide.

    Note    : Ensure that there are enough available ports on the virtual switch. For more information, see Network cable of a virtual machine appears unplugged (1004883) and No network connectivity if all ports are in use (1009103).
  5. Verify that the storage array is listed in the Hardware Compatibility Guide. For more information, see the VMware Compatibility Guide. Consult your hardware vendor to ensure that the array is configured properly.

    Note    : Some array vendors have a minimum microcode/firmware version that is required to work with ESX.
  6. Verify that the physical hardware functions correctly. Consult your hardware vendor for more details.

  7. Verify that the server (if it is Windows) is correctly configured for NFS. For more information, see Troubleshooting adding a data store from a Windows Services NFS device (1004490).
 
To troubleshoot a mount being read-only:
  1. Verify that the permissions of the NFS server have not been set to read-only for this ESX host.
  2. Verify that the NFS share was not mounted with the read-only box selected.

Note: If your problem still exists after trying the steps in this article, please:

Tags

nfs-connectivity add-nfs-datastore

See Also

Update History

05/11/2010 - Additional troubleshooting steps.

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