vPostgres Service Fails to Start in vCenter 8.0 U2

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

In a vCenter Server 8.0 U2 environment, you may observe the following symptoms:

• When accessing the vSphere Client in a browser, “no healthy upstream” is displayed.

• When checking services with service-control --status, vmware-vpostgres remains in start-pending.

• The following messages are recorded in vmon.log:

  • Service batch op START failed. Failed services: 'vmware-vpostgres'

  • <vmware-vpostgres> Service api-health command's stderr: Error getting service health. Error: Failed to read health xml file: /dev/shm/vmware-postgres-health-status.xml. Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/dev/shm/vmware-postgres-health-status.xml'

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Cause

The database configuration file postgresql.conf is corrupted or was unintentionally modified.
The file may become extremely small and required startup parameters can be missing.

As a result, the pre-start process and API health check cannot complete successfully.

Resolution

Replace the corrupted postgresql.conf with a known-good default file from a healthy vCenter Server running the same version.

1. Log in to the vCenter Server via SSH as root.

2. Start the shell:

    shell

3. Back up the existing configuration file:

    cp /storage/db/vpostgres/postgresql.conf /storage/db/vpostgres/postgresql.conf.org

4. Copy a valid postgresql.conf obtained from a healthy vCenter Server (same version) to /storage/db/vpostgres/postgresql.conf

5. Verify ownership and permissions:

   • Owner: vpostgres:vpgmongrp

   • Permissions: 600 (-rw-------)

6. Restart all services:

    service-control --stop --all
    service-control --start --all

7. Wait approximately 15 minutes for services to start successfully.

Additional Information

• If a “Permission denied” message is recorded due to insufficient write permissions to: /var/log/vmware/cloudvm/cloudvm-ram-size.log refer to the related KB: 
  Failed to start vCenter services due Permission issue in /var/log/vmware/cloudvm/cloudvm-ram-size.log