Manually setting a scratch location for ESXi in the vSphere Client appears to succeed but the setting is not honored

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

If you are attempting to set or update the scratch location for an ESXi host using the vSphere Client as per Creating a persistent scratch location for ESXi (1033696), you may experience these symptoms:

• After clicking OK the Update option valuestask completes successfully, but the new setting is not honored and the advanced option setting shows the old setting
• /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog.log contains the entry:
  
  verbose 'ScratchOptionProvider' opID=8F8CA6B1-00000660-38] Exception setting ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation : FileIO error: Could not find file : /etc/vmware/locker.conf
  info 'ScratchOptionProvider'] Error getting Scratch config information : FileIO error: Could not find file : /etc/vmware/locker.conf

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable

Cause

This issue occurs if the /etc/vmware/locker.conf file has been manually deleted.

Deleting the /etc/vmware/locker.conf file is not a supported method of removing the link to the scratch location. To remove the scratch location reference, empty the file rather than deleting it.

Resolution

To workaround this issue, you must restore the locker.conf file.

To restore the locker.conf file, perform one of these options:

• Recreate the file:
1. SSH to the ESXi host with root credentials.
2. Change directory to /etc/vmware with the command:
   
   cd /etc/vmware
   
   
3. Verify that the locker.conf file is not present with the command:
   
   ls -ltr locker.conf
   
   
4. Recreate the locker.conf file with the command:
   
   touch /etc/vmware/locker.conf
   
   
5. Create the scratch location. For more information, see Creating a persistent scratch location for ESXi (1033696).
   
   
• Reboot the ESXi host.

Additional Information

Creating a persistent scratch location for ESXi 4.x/5.x/6.x