/storage/core Partition Full Due to Core Files in vCenter Server Appliance

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• This article provides resolution steps when the

  /storage/core partition becomes full on the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), preventing services from starting or causing access issues

  .
• The vCenter Server Appliance management interface may display:

   File system /storage/core is low on storage space. Increase the size of disk /storage/core

• Users may encounter below error when attempting to access the vCenter UI.

  No healthy upstream

• The vmware-vpxd service enters a stopped state.
• Below is the output from the vCenter SSH session:

[ /storage/core ]# df -h /storage/core/
Filesystem                            Size   Used   Avail   Use%   Mounted on
/dev/mapper/core_vg-core   98G    96G    20G    97%     /storage/core

Sample Core files:

[ /storage/core ]# du -sh *
16M  core.ps.######
16M  core.ps.######
16M  core.ps.######
16M  core.ps.######
16M  core.ps.######
16M  core.ps.######
175M core.python.######
175M core.python.######
32G  core.updatemgr-worker.#######
34G  core.updatemgr-worker.#######
7.8G core.vpxd-worker.####
16K  lost+found
4.0K netdumps
20K  software-update
4.0K vmware-wcp

Environment

• VMware vCenter 7.x/8.x/9.x

Cause

• This occurs due to the generation of numerous core dump files, such as:

core.netlogond.######
core.updatemgr-worker.#####
core.vpxd-worker.####

• These files are typically created when the vCenter services crash or encounter fatal errors.

Resolution

1. Verification: Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance via SSH as the root user and verify the partition usage:
   

   df -h /storage/core

2. Identify Core Files: Navigate to the /storage/core directory and identify large core files
   

   cd /storage/core
   du -sh *

3. Removal: Manually delete the identified obsolete core files using the rm command. Use caution to remove only the core dump files:
   

   rm core.updatemgr-worker.######
   rm core.vpxd-worker.####

4. Verification: After removal, verify that available storage has been reclaimed
   

   df -h /storage/core

5. Restart Services: If vCenter services do not recover automatically, restart the services
   

   service-control --start --all