VCF Fleet Management deployment fails at the final "deploy and validate" stage with error "Can not find OSDATA partition on ESX Host <ESXi Host FQDN>"
Article ID: 413638
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
- VCF Fleet Management deployment fails at "deploy and validate" stage with error "Can not find OSDATA partition on ESX Host <ESXi Host FQDN>".
- The problematic Host is booted up using a SD Card.
- For the affected ESXi Host, the OSData partition is missing. The same can be confirmed from the ESXi Host's command line by running 'df -h'. The /vmfs/volumes/OSDATA filesystem would be missing.
- Using the instructions in the kb - Migrate the ESXi OSData partition from an SD card to existing VMFS partitions, a new OSDATA partition is created manually after adding a new local persistent media or a remote persistent device. This is done after the ESXi Host has already booted up with an SD Card. However, the VCF deployment still complains of the Host not having a OSDATA partition.
- The hostd service in /var/run/log/hostd.log complains of OSDATA config validation.
Er(163) Hostd[]: [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc opID=vim-cmd-<ID> sid=<ID>user=root] OSData config validation failed OSData can only be a subdirectory of a VMFS volume
Environment
VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.x
Cause
A local persistent media is not provided along with the SD Card during the initial setup. As a result, the OS Data partition is never created. Creating a OSDATA partition later doesn't provision it as a local filesystem (filesystem type VMFS-L or VMFSOS) so it isn't recognized as a valid configuration.
Resolution
Refer SD card/USB boot device revised guidance
Even though the support for SD card as a boot media is still retained, we do not guarantee the viability of SD cards as a boot option. If a persistent local device is not available as a boot device, SD cards can be used for boot bank partitions However a separate persistent local device to store the OSDATA partition (32GB** minimum, 128GB** recommended) must be provided.
Provide a valid persistent media at the time of the initial bootup/deployment for the OSDATA partitioned to be provisioned correctly with the appropriate filesystem type.
Additional Information
Feedback
