Host Profile Remediation Fails Due to Audit Record Storage Capacity Reduction on ESXi Hosts "Batch apply host configuration Cannot apply the host configuration"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to remediate ESXi hosts using the Nutanix 6.0 host profile, the remediation process fails with the following error:
  “Batch apply host configuration Cannot apply the host configuration. Host profile apply failed with error: Error setting advanced options on the host. View the host logs for details.”
• This failure occurs despite the same host profile working successfully on another cluster with identical hardware configuration.

var/run/log/hostd.log

2025-05-23T05:40:51.683Z In( 166) Hostd[2100098]: [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc. Sys logConfigProvider opID=m82zrjbi-982192-auto-liwd-h5:70217401-2d-01-ec-a4d3-a4ef sid=5261e524 user=vpxuser] Set called with key'Syslog.global. auditRecord. storageCapacity', value '4'
2025-05-23T05:40:51.705Z Er(163) Hostd[2100098]: [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc.SyslogConfigProvider opID=m82zrjbi-982192-auto-l1wd-h5:70217401-2d-01-ec-a4d3-a4ef sid=5261e524 user=vpxuser] Failed to set global syslog configuration : Audit record storage capacity cannot be reduced.
2025-05-23T05:40:51.705Z In(166) Hostd[2100098]: [Originator@6876 sub=AdapterServer opID=m82zrjbi-982192-auto-l1wd-h5: 70217401-2d-01-ec-a4d3-a4ef sid=5261e524 user=vpxuser] AdapterServer caught exception; <5261e524-a139-adf9-8d7a-15965c512f0e, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 8307'>, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 35901'>>, ha-adv-options, vim. option. OptionManager. updateValues, <vim. version. v8_0_1_0, official, 8.0.1.0>, [N11HostdCommon18VmomiAdapterServer19ActivationResponderE:0x000000f5a23fbfa8]>, N5Vmomi5Fault11SystemError9ExceptionE( Fault cause: vmodl. fault. SystemError

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The remediation process attempts to reduce the audit record storage capacity to 4 GB, which ESXi does not permit once a higher value has been set. This restriction is in place to prevent loss of audit log data and to ensure compliance with security policies.

Resolution

To resolve the remediation failure, manually align host’s audit record storage settings.

• Set the audit record storage to enabled:

esxcli system syslog config set --audit-storage-enable=true

• Set the audit record storage capacity to 4 GB:

esxcli system syslog config set --audit-storage-capacity=4

• Restart the syslog service to apply changes:

/etc/init.d/vmsyslogd restart

• Retry the host remediation process.