ESXi host RAM disk is full

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• The following error may appear:
  The ramdisk 'root' is full. As a result, the file /var/log/vmware/journal/234567890.O could not be written.

• In /var/log/vmkernel.log, the following message may appear:
  VisorFSRam: 233: Cannot extend visorfs file /var/lib/vmware/hostd/journal/ because its ramdisk (root) is full.

• Files on the affected RAM disk cannot be extended
• Backups may fail for the VMs running on this host
• vCenter may show the following error:
  

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

One or more of the RAM disks that make up the ESXi host root file system might reach resource pool limits as a result of a software failure or use of an incorrect path.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, find and remove unneeded files from the system to free up available space.

To view and identify large files larger than 1 MB, review the below steps:

SSH to the affected ESXi host

1. To identify files in the root directory larger than 1 MB run the following:
   $ find / -size +1024k -exec du -h {} \; | less
   
   
2. Old host and/or services logs may be moved/deleted to provide space on the ESXi host
3. Place host into maintenance mode and reboot to free up currently open file handles

Note: If the error was caused by an administrator action, delete the files that use the incorrect path.

Additional Information

For additional information:

• Investigating disk space on an ESXi host
• Creating a persistent scratch location for ESXi 8.x/7.x/6.x
• ESXi host becomes unresponsive when attempting a vMotion migration or a configuration change