Remove inaccessible NFS datastores in ESXi7.0U1 and above versions

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

The ESXi host experiences a prolonged boot process due to the inaccessible NFS datastore.

The console displays a pending task labeled 'start plugin: restore-nfs-volumes.'

Ultimately, the boot process fails with the error message 'failed executing esxcli command: boot storage restore --nfs-volumes. 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Cause

1. As NFS volumes become inaccessible when ESXi is booting, these NFS volumes cannot be listed with following commands:

# esxlci storage nfs list
# esxcli storage nfs41 list (if it's NFS4.1)
# esxcfg-nas -l
# esxcli storage filesystem list

2. From ESXi7.0U1 and above, the NFS configuration gets saved in Configuration Store instead of /etc/vmware/esx.conf. This can be checked with the following command:

# configstorecli config current get -c esx -g storage -k nfs_v3_datastores

# configstorecli config current get -c esx -g storage -k nfs_v41_datastores (If NFS 4.1 in used)

Resolution

To remove the inaccessible NFS datastores configuration, following commands can be used:

# esxcli storage nfs remove -v NFS_datastore_name

# esxcfg-nas -d NFS_datastore_name

If all the above commands are not helpful, use following command to remove all the NFS datastores on the ESXi.

# configstorecli config current delete -c esx -g storage -k nfs_v3_datastores --all