Attempt to mount datastore fails with error : " Permission denied: VSI node (5002:) "

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

• Error seen while trying to mount NFS datastore - " An error occurred during host configuration: . Operation failed, diagnostics report: Mount failed: Unable to complete Sysinfo operation. Please see the VMkernel log file for more details.: Permission denied: VSI node (5002:) "

• This NFS  datastore is successfully mounted and accessible on other ESXi hosts.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

• The NFS datastore was unable to be mounted on host  because the required export permissions were missing on the storage side. 

• Specifically, the NFS storage server had not authorized the host to access volume. 

• This can be seen from the /var/run/log/vmkernel.log :

  2026-01-20T05:47:32.809Z Wa (180) vmkwarning: cpu34:2101090 opID=cb7893f3) WARNING: NFS41: NFS41FSGetRootFH: 4919: Lookup <nfs fs name> failed for volume nfs41: Permission denied

Resolution

To resolve this issue

1. Work with the infrastructure storage team to verify and apply  the necessary permissions for the ESXi host on the storage server  to mount the NFS volume. 

2. Once necessary permissions are granted, mount the NFS volume on the host.