I changed my network configuration at home a while back and when I went to create a new Chef Server VM in ESXi I was unable to find my software datastore with my Ubuntu 16.04 ISO. I tried mounting my NFS volume through vCenter and it failed. I then went directly to the ESXi web client and it failed as well. I’ve seen inconsistencies in the GUI versus the CLI so I SSH into my server. I try mounting my NFS volume and it fails:

esxcli storage nfs add --host=<myhost> --share=<myshare> --volume-name=<myvolume>

Unable to add new NAS, volume with the label software already exists

As any other IT person would do I google the response and found this super helpful post: https://www.bussink.ch/?p=1640

It alerted me to the issue and resolution but needed to be updated for ESXi 6.5 instances. So, now you remove the hidden volume with this command:

esxcli storage nfs remove --volume-name=<myvolume>

Then you are free to remount and carry on about your business.

• ESXi
• NFS
• VMware