The vmkernel logs report a warning containing LinChar and LinuxCharWrite

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You see a similar warning within the /var/log/vmkernel logs of a VMware ESX host running on Hewlett Packard hardware:

WARNING: LinChar: LinuxCharWrite: M=224 m=0 flags=0x1002 write 29004 bytes at offset 0x8a1ccc failed (-16)

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESX 4.1.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the Integrated Lights-Out 2 (iLO2) is reset. This issue is observed in iLO2 version 1.80.

For more information, see:

• Known Issues in HP ProLiant Servers - Readme File for HP Management Agents version 8.3.0 for VMWARE ESX4
• HP Support Communication Customer Advisory c02483992

Note: The preceding links were correct as of September 15, 2015. If you find a link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

Resolution

This is not a VMware Issue. Per the HP customer advisory, the resolution is to upgrade the HP Management Agent software to the latest version on the hosts exhibiting the issue.

To work around this issue, restart the HP management agents.

To restart the HP agents:

1. Log in to the service console as root.
2. Run the command service hp-snmp-agents restart.

Notes:

• This issue was also observed on ESX 4.1 - 348481 with iLO3 having Firmware version 1.16 and running HP Management Agent version 8.5.1. As it is an issue with iLO, contact the vendor HP for any such issues.
• This issue is seen on an HP BL460c Gen8 with iLO4 (ESXi, 5.1.0, 1900470; latest HP patches).
• This issue is also seen on an HP host running ESXi 5.5.