vCenter update process fails with a "Installing of one or more RPMs failed" message

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to update a vCenter Server to a later build of the same major version, such as 7.0 U3l to 7.0 U3s, the update process fails with the following message:

 

"Installing of one or more RPMs failed"

 

• Attempting to resume the update process fails with this next message:

 

"There is not enough space on the disk(s).  Increase disk space and try again"

 

• When viewing the disk usage using "df -h" on the vCenter CLI or in the VAMI, there is sufficient space on each disk.

Environment

• vCenter Server 7.x
• vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

• The /var/log/vmware/applmgmt/update_microservice.log file may list similar entries stating the failure to unpack packages against the /var/log/vmware/journal path.

error: unpacking of archive failed on file /var/log/vmware/journal: cpio: File from package already exists as a directory in system

error: VMware-vpxd-7.0.3.01500-11163753.x86_64: install failed

error: VMware-vpxd-7.0.3.01400-10952329.x86_64: erase skipped

 

• On the affected vCenter Server, the /var/log/vmware/ directory contains a sub directory name "journal" containing the following link:
  • journal -> /storage/db/journal/
  • 

 

 

• This link should exist directly under the /var/log/vmware/ directory, not under /var/log/vmware/journal/.
• This specific issue was caused by deleting the contents of the /var/log/vmware/ directory manually, then manually recreating the files and directories under /var/log/vmware/.

Resolution

• Remove the "journal" link under the /var/log/vmware/journal/ directory
  
  
  
  • cd /var/log/vmware/journal/
  
  
  • rm journal
  
  
  
  


• Remove the now empty journal directory from the /var/log/vmware/ directory
  
  
  
  • cd ../ or cd /var/log/vmware/
  
  
  • rmdir journal
  
  
  
  


• Recreate the "journal" link in the /var/log/vmware/ directory
  
  
  
  • ln -s /storage/db/journal/ journal