Adding an NFS datastore to VMWare ESXi

VMWare ESXi supports NFS storage. All the VMWare documents talk about managing it from vSphere. Which is a pity if you don't happen to be using vSphere. Fortunately adding your NFS datastore is relatively simple, apart from the lack of documentation.
The steps:

  • Setup your NFS share
  • Make sure that it does not require credentials to access it ie allow access from the IP address of your ESXi server (note the mount point)
  • Login via SSH to your ESXi server
    • esxcli storage nfs add --host=your_nfs_server_ip --share=the_mount_point --volume-name=volume_name

Make sure the volume_name does not clash with any other names on the ESXi server.