CIM providers do not shut down cleanly

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When you disable the CIMOM (with command esxcli system wbem set -e 0), providers associated with the CIMOM are directed to shutdown.
If they do not shut down within a certain period of time, the providers are shut down forcibly. This period of time is called the shutdown interval and defaults to 5 seconds.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting vSphere ESXi 6.7.

If you want a longer interval, you must either add the shutdownInterval variable to the sfcb.cfg file located in /etc/sfcb on ESXi or to the .reg file. This can be a numeric value between 5 and 60 seconds.

When the CIMOM is disabled, the sfcb.cfg is read first and then the providerRegister files. If neither the sfcb.cfg nor the providerRegister files contains a specific shutdownInterval value, the shutdownInterval is 5 seconds by default. Otherwise, the shutdownInterval for all providers is the largest value of either the sfcb.cfg or any providerRegister file. The setting in a providerRegister file is updated only if the value in the sfcb.cfg file is larger.