If a filesystem has unused space, but the number of inodes has reached the maximum, you cannot create new files. This can appear like a full filesystem.
To resolve this issue, determine if the ESX console file system and the VMFS file system have reached the inode or filesystem limit and remove some files.
To determine if the ESX console file system and the VMFS file system have reached the inode or filesystem limit and remove some files:
Run this command to generate a list of log files that may be candidates for deletion:
find / -path "/vmfs" -prune -o -type f -size +50000k -exec ls -lh '{}' \;
This command seeks out files 50,000 KB (50MB) or larger, skips the /vmfs directory where virtual machines may be located, and provides detailed output for each file. This may return locally-stored ISO files, log bundles, large log files, etc.
Some typical paths where excess files may be located are:
/tmp/vmware-root
/var/core
/var/log/vmware/aam/rul
Warning:
Review the files in question before removal using rm. Files cannot be recovered after deletion.
Do not delete log information unless necessary. Consider archiving older logging elsewhere.