Increasing the disk space in vCenter Server Appliance 5.x
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Increasing the disk space in vCenter Server Appliance 5.x

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Article ID: 320244

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

VMware vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded vPostgres database might experience low disk space. This article provides steps to increase the disk space.
 
Note: For information on increasing disk space in vCenter Server 6.0, see Increasing the disk space for the vCenter Server Appliance in vSphere 6.0 (2126276).


Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.1.x

Resolution

Caution: Moving any directories other than the /storage/db/ directory is unsupported and will cause the vCenter Server Appliance to fail when upgrading.

Process to Increase the Disk Space in vCenter Server Appliance 5.x:

To increase the disk space in vCenter Server Appliance(VCSA) 5.x follow the steps below:
  1. Shut down the vCenter Server Appliance.
  2. Create a snapshot of the vCenter Server Appliance.
  3. Add a new hard disk of necessary size to the vCenter Server Appliance.

    For more information on adding a new hard disk, see:
     
  4. Power on the vCenter Server Appliance.
  5. Connect to the vCenter Server Appliance using SSH.
  6. List all disk and identify the device ID of the new disk added by running this command in the shell client:

    fdisk -lu

    Note: By default, the device ID for the new disk is /dev/sdc
     
  7. Access the disk utility for the new disk by running this command:

    fdisk /dev/sdc
     
    1. Press N then Enter for new partition
    2. Press P then Enter for primary partition
    3. Enter 1 as the partition number
    4. Accept the default start block and the default end block
    5. Enter W to write the partition table to disk
    6. Create a new partition on the new disk:
       
  8. Build an ext3 file system on the new disk using this command:

    mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdc1
     
  9. Create a new temporary directory under the root directory by running this command:

    mkdir /tmp/db
     
  10. Mount the new disk to the /tmp/db directory by running this command:

    mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /tmp/db
     
  11. Power off all services that access the vPostgres /storage/db directory by running this commands:

    service vmware-vpxd stop
    service vmware-vpostgres stop
    service vmdird stop
    service vmware-inventoryservice stop
     
  12. Copy all the /storage/db files into the /tmp/db directory by running this command:

    cp -a /storage/db/* /tmp/db
     
  13. Return to the root directory by running this command:

    cd /
     
  14. Verify the mount points by running this command:

    mount

    For example, you see output similar to:

    /dev/sda3 on / typ ext3 (rw)
    proc on /proc type proc (rw)
    sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
    udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
    tmpfs on /dev/shm type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
    /dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,noacl)
    /dev/sdb1 on /storage/core type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
    /dev/sdb2 on /storage/log type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
    /dev/sdb3 on /storage/db type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
    /dev/sdc1 on /tmp/db type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev)

     
  15. Unmount the original disk and the new disk by running these commands:

    umount /dev/sdb3
    umount /dev/sdc1
     
  16. Mount the new disk to the /storage/db directory by running this command:

    mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /storage/db
     
  17. Preserve the new mount to the /storage/db directory by running the command:

    sed -i -e 's#/dev/sdb3#/dev/sdc1#' /etc/fstab

    Note: Do not remove /sdb3 from the virtual machine.
     
  18. Reboot the vCenter Server Appliance.

    Additional Information

    For translated versions of this article, see:



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