vsan-healthcheck-disposable VMs fail to delete automatically in vSAN cluster

Products

• VMware vSAN 7.x
• VMware vSAN 8.x

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• By design, SDDC Manager runs vSAN Proactive test every few minutes.
  
  
• This vSAN Proactive Test has one of the test as VM Creation Test which creates VMs named 'vsan-healthcheck-disposable' as part of its testing.
  
  
  
  
  
• To navigate to 'VM Creation test :
  vSphere Client > Select vSAN Cluster > Under 'Monitor' tab > 'vSAN' > Proactive test > VM Creation Test
  
  
• Automatic deletion of these VMs does not work and are seen as stale VMs in vCenter inventory (in powered-off state).
  
  

Environment

VMware vSAN 7.x
VMware vSAN 8.x

Cause

• These VMs (vsan-healthcheck-disposable-xxxxx-xxxxx-esx-xxxx) by default deletes instantly after its creation, as part of the 'VM Creation Test' .
  
  
• One VM per host is created in the vSAN cluster under which this test is run.
  
  
• In an instance of any existing or impending issues in vSAN Cluster or any interrupted vSAN health check, these VMs are reported as stale VMs in vCenter inventory.

Resolution

• To ensure no issue with the vSAN Health, ran Proactive Test > VM creation Test.
  
  
• If the VMs create and delete instantly and automatically (as seen under 'Recent Tasks' in vSphere Client), the vSAN health is good and its components are working normally.
  
  

 

• Automatic deletion of the VMs are indicative of good health of vSAN cluster.
• Once vSAN cluster is validated to be healthy, stale vsan-healthcheck-disposable VMs are good to be deleted manually.
  
  
  • Right click on VM > Delete from Disk

• Note : Deleting of these stale VMs are safe and has no repercussions on vSAN functionality.