The root partition on the vCenter Server is full.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• A warning alert for root disk exhaustion has been triggered on the vCenter UI summary page.
• A review of the df -h output shows that the root partition is using more than 80% of its capacity.

• Analyzing the used space on the root filesystem:

• The "messages" file is occupying 20GB of space in the /root partition.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

• A "messages" file in the /root partition was found to be occupying 20GB of disk space.
• The messages file contained outdated data and had not been updated.

Resolution

Workaround:

• Take a snapshot of the vCenter VM.
• Access the vCenter VM via SSH using the root account and navigate to the root partition with the following command.
  • cd /root
• Identify the files that are utilizing the most disk space (In this scenario, its "messages" file)
  
  • du -shc *
• Use the following command to truncate the "messages" file.
  
  • echo > messages
• Run df -h again to check if disk space has been reclaimed.