Upgrade gets stuck during task "[/usr/share/ansible/stig-hardening : PHTN-40-000237 - Initialize AIDE database"

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• Upgrade of Cloud Director(VCD) appears to hang during the Initialize AIDE database stage.
• In the log file /opt/vmware/var/log/vami/updatecli.log on the appliance you are facing below error during vCloud Director upgrade.

  TASK [/usr/share/ansible/stig-hardening : PHTN-40-000237 - Copy aide.conf template] ***
changed: [127.0.0.1] => {"changed": true, "checksum": "################", "dest": "/etc/aide.conf", "gid": 0, "group": "root", "md5sum": null, "mode": "0600", "owner": "root", "size": 1491, "src": "/root/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-######.######-####-######/source", "state": "file", "uid": 0}

  TASK [/usr/share/ansible/stig-hardening : PHTN-40-000237 - Check to see if AIDE is initialized] ***
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {"changed": false, "cmd": ["aide", "--check"], "delta": "0:00:00.#####", "end": "2025-08-02 08:20:49.566217", "failed_when_result": false, "msg": "non-zero return code", "rc": 18, "start": "2025-08-02 08:20:49.560619", "stderr": "   INFO: initialise rule tree\n   INFO: define default group definitions\n   INFO: read command line parameters\n   INFO: (--check): database check command\n   INFO: parse configuration\n  ERROR: /etc/aide.conf:6: open (read-only) failed for file '/var/lib/aide/aide.db.gz': No such file or directory (line: 'database_in=file:@@{DBDIR}/aide.db.gz')", "stderr_lines": ["   INFO: initialise rule tree", "   INFO: define default group definitions", "   INFO: read command line parameters", "   INFO: (--check): database check command", "   INFO: parse configuration", "  ERROR: /etc/aide.conf:6: open (read-only) failed for file '/var/lib/aide/aide.db.gz': No such file or directory (line: 'database_in=file:@@{DBDIR}/aide.db.gz')"], "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []}

  TASK [/usr/share/ansible/stig-hardening : PHTN-40-000237 - Initialize AIDE database] ***

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.6.1.1

VMware Cloud Director 10.5.1.1

Cause

During the upgrade process the aide --init command will traverse directories and files mounted on the VCD cell as part of the initialization process. If there are a large number of files to traverse then it will extend the amount of time taken to upgrade. In particular the NFS mount point /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/ can contain large amounts of files. This may lead the user to suspect the upgrade is hung. 

Note: Additional factors such as the amount of available resources on the cell, disk I/O latency, etc, can contribute to the time taken.

Resolution

Prior to upgrade ensure that the /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/ directory and sub-directory do not contain any unnecessary large volumes of files.

If any custom directories have been created on the NFS mount, then removal of those directories should be considered. Example: /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/Custom_Directory_with_large_data. 

**As NFS allocated to VCD is provisioned for seamless performance of VCD Appliance, so the NFS should only be solely used for VCD purpose as mentioned in the document: Preparing the Transfer Server Storage for Your VMware Cloud Director Appliance