NSX Installation on an ESXi Host fails with an error "Failed to install software on host. Failed to download NSX components on host. Check the host connectivity and if "/tmp" folder has enough space"

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to install NSX on an ESXi host, it fails with error "Failed to install software on host. Failed to download NSX components on host. Check the host connectivity and if "/tmp" folder has enough space" pointing to either host connectivity issue or not enough space in the hosts /tmp directory.

• • For host connectivity, may see the following snippets in the /var/log/proton/nsxapi.log on the NSX Manager. 

2024-09-24T05:50:27.381Z ERROR ActivityWorkerPool-1-11 Esx60SfdmManager 266533 FABRIC [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-manager" errorCode="MP26168"
 level="ERROR" subcomp="manager"] Install/Upgrade on ESX - Uploading LCP bundle to host ####c8bd-####-####-####-c87b22###### failed
com.vmware.nsx.management.ovfops.exception.CommandExecutionFailed:    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current

105M      0   359k  0:07:31  0:04:59  0:02:32  327k

curl: (28) Operation timed out after 300000 milliseconds with 0 bytes received

 

2024-09-24T05:50:27.389Z ERROR ActivityWorkerPool-1-11 DeploymentUnitActivityInstall 266533 FABRIC [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-manager" errorCode="MP26050" level="ERROR" subcomp="manager"] Host prep failed for ####c8bd-####-####-####-c87b22######.

com.vmware.nsx.management.service_fabric.sfdm.exception.HostInstallFailedException: null

        at com.vmware.nsx.management.service_fabric.sfdm.esx.Esx60SfdmManager.downloadLCPBundle(Esx60SfdmManager.java:361) ~[?:?]

        at com.vmware.nsx.management.service_fabric.sfdm.esx.Esx60SfdmManager.install(Esx60SfdmManager.java:198) ~[?:?]

        at com.vmware.nsx.management.service_fabric.sfdm.esx.Esx60SfdmManager.install(Esx60SfdmManager.java:143) ~[?:?]

        at com.vmware.nsx.management.service_fabric.sfm.deployment.service.DeploymentUnitActivityInstall.phaseInstall(DeploymentUnitActivityInstall.java:165) ~[?:?]

        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) ~[?:1.8.0_382]

        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62) ~[?:1.8.0_382]

        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) ~[?:1.8.0_382]

        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498) ~[?:1.8.0_382]

        at com.vmware.nsx.platform.clustering.activity_framework.model.AbstractActivity.executePhase(AbstractActivity.java:152) ~[?:?]

        at com.vmware.nsx.platform.clustering.activity_framework.service.impl.ActivityExecutor.executeActivityPhase(ActivityExecutor.java:524) ~[?:?]

        at com.vmware.nsx.platform.clustering.activity_framework.service.impl.ActivityExecutor.processReadyActivityQueue(ActivityExecutor.java:447) ~[?:?]

• • • In the above snippet, we see that the operation times out as the NSX LCP file is not copied on to the "/tmp" directory of the ESXi Host within 300,000 milliseconds (300 seconds ~ 5 minutes).

• • For the hosts /tmp file system available space, run 'vdf -h' from an SSH session on the host. 
    • The nsx-lcp-bundle size varies in size but can reach 175M. 

•  

Environment

VMware NSX-T DataCenter
VMware NSX

Cause

The error "Failed to install software on host. Failed to download NSX components on host. Check the host connectivity and if "/tmp" folder has enough space" can occur if the nsx-lcp-bundle file takes more than 5 minutes to transfer to the ESXi host, or if there is not enough free space in the hosts /tmp file system for the nsx-lcp-bundle file. 

Resolution

There is no resolution as this is an environmental issue.

Workaround:

• Manually copy the LCP file from the NSX Manager node from /repository into the /tmp folder of the ESXi host, which can be achieved via WinSCP.
  • File path for LCP file from root user SSH session NSX Manager;
    • /repository/<NSX-version>/HostComponents/<esx-version>/nsx-lcp-<nsx-version>-<esx-version>.zip
    • i.e. /repository/4.2.0.0.0.24105817/HostComponents/esx80/nsx-lcp-4.2.0.0.0.24105819-esx80.zip
• Post that, run the following command on the concerned ESXi host;
  • esxcli software component apply -n nsx-lcp-bundle  -d /tmp/nsx-lcp-<nsx-version>-<esx-version>.zip --no-sig-check
• Once done, the NSX Installation should go through successfully.