Error: "Insufficient permission to access the file." when vMotion of a VM to a newly added host.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When migrating VM from existing host to a newly added host, the below errors would show up.

• vMotion of powered off VM gives error:

Unable to write VMX file: /vmfs/volumes/NFS-UUID/VM_Folder/VM.vmx. Insufficient permission to access the file.

• vMotion of powered on VM gives the below error.

A general system error occurred: Launch failure 2025-10-31T01:26:24.175853Z Out of resources Cause: Out of resources.

• vMotion may also fail with error as below.

"A general system error occurred: vDS host error: see faultCause Cannot create DVPort 272 of VDS SHL-DvSwitch on the host"

• Storage vMotion may also fail with error as below.

          "Cannot complete file creation operation."

Environment

• VMware ESXi 7.x
• VMware ESXi 8.x
• VMware ESXi 9.x
• NFS Storage solution.

Cause

• The above error messages indicate, the newly added host or cluster does not have full permissions (root) for the NAS volume shared between hosts. However, the existing hosts have full permissions. This leads to different errors when migrating the VM between two hosts with different Storage permission levels on NAS Storage.

• This can be validated by reviewing the /var/run/log/vmkernel.log on destination ESXI host where VM is failing to register or power on.

vmkwarning: cpu64:2099265 opID=3b5010b7) WARNING: NFSLock: 4012: Failed to create .lck-69013e9d00000000 : Permission denied

vmkernel: cpu64:2099265 opID=3b5010b7) NFSLock: 5141: failed to get lock on file 221(.lck-69013e9d00000000) 0x430d435e7730 on NFS_Datastore 172.##.##.35 (172.##.##.35) : Permission denied. fromunlink Y

Resolution

• Please involve NAS storage engineer/vendor to fix the required permissions for the ESXi hosts to access NFS storage with full access. 

• It may require root permissions / Superuser for the hosts. This can be reviewed and applied according to the NAS settings.