Receive "Error: not a normal file" in VM Console during upgrade

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to upgrade Aria Operations for Logs, you receive the message: "Error: not a normal file" in the console of the node after its reboot.

Environment

Aria Operations for Logs 8.xx

Cause

This error is produced usually because the photon.cfg file was not written properly to the /boot partition at the beginning of the upgrade process. This is usually caused because upgrade files were not cleaned up automatically after the last upgrade.

Resolution

Revert to the snapshot before upgrading and SSH into affected nodes.

• Run the command: ls -l /boot
• If there are any file that look like "initramfs-X.XX.XXX-X.phX.img"
• You should only have 2 "initrd.img-x.xx.xxx-x.phx" files that will match with 2 "vmlinuz-x.xx.xxx-x.phx" 
• All other files should be under 2Mb. Anything over 2Mb that are not the files listed above can be removed. (screenshot examples below)
• Run the command:  df -h
• You should have anywhere between 35Mb and 40Mb available in the /boot partition.