NFS3 datastore has a different UUID across hosts for the same export

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x

Issue/Introduction

On different ESXi hosts within a cluster, an NFS3 datastore is mounted with a different datastore UUID.

 

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Cause

If an NFSv3 export is mounted with an IP address on one ESXi host and a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) on another, it will result in different datastore UUIDs for the same export.

This occurs because the datastore UUID is generated from a hash of the server name (as provided by the user) and the remote path, treating the IP address and the FQDN as distinct server names.

Resolution

To avoid this issue, the datastore must be mounted consistently across all hosts (e.g., always use FQDN or always use IP, with the same export path)

To achieve this use one of the following 2 options:

Option 1:

1. For exmaple, if the datastore is be mounted consistently via the FQDN, identify hosts which have the datastore via IP, and migrate VMs running on this host from the datastore to other datastores. 
2. Unmount the NFS share from all these hosts 
3. Re-mount the NFS datastore on these hosts with the FQDN (Note: Any deviation in mount details may lead to challenges with datastore UUIDs.)
4. Confirm that the datastore UUID is the same across all hosts that have mounted the datastore.
5. Migrate VMs back to the datatstore.

Note: Alternatively, at Step 1, VMs can be shutdown and unregistered from the datastore, and, after it is remounted, registered back to the datatore and powered on.  


Option 2

1. Create a new replacement NFS3 datastore which is mounted consistently across all hosts
2. Migrate VMs to the new datastore
3. Unmount/delete the old datastore.