vCenter appliance back up fails due to vmware-perfcharts service in stopped state

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to start the vmware-perfcharts service, the following error is encountered:
  
  Error executing start on service perfcharts. Details {
      "detail": [
          {
              "id": "install.ciscommon.service.failstart",
              "translatable": "An error occurred while starting service '%(0)s'",
              "args": [
                  "perfcharts"
              ],
              "localized": "An error occurred while starting service 'perfcharts'"
          }
      ],
      "componentKey": null,
      "problemId": null,
      "resolution": null
  }
  Service-control failed. Error: {
      "detail": [
          {
              "id": "install.ciscommon.service.failstart",
              "translatable": "An error occurred while starting service '%(0)s'",
              "args": [
                  "perfcharts"
              ],
              "localized": "An error occurred while starting service 'perfcharts'"
          }
      ],
      "componentKey": null,
      "problemId": null,
      "resolution": null
  
  
• /var/log/vmware/vmon/vmon.log:
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:Sec.099Z Er(02) host-2564 <perfcharts> [Process: 996884] Failed to redirect std-stream. Error: Permission denied
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:Sec.099Z Wa(03) host-2564 <perfcharts> Service exited. Exit code 254
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:Sec.100Z Wa(03) host-2564 [ReadSvcSubStartupData] No startup information from perfcharts.

Environment

• VMware vCenter server Appliance 8.0.3 

Cause

The issue was caused by incorrect file permissions and ownership on the directory /var/log/vmware/perfcharts/. As a result, the VMware perfcharts service was unable to access or write to the log directory.

Resolution

• 1) Login to the vCenter server appliance using the root credentials.
  
  2) Set the appropriate ownership for the vmware-updatemgr directory and its contents using the following commands:
  
  chown -R perfcharts:users /var/log/vmware/perfcharts/
  
  3) Restart the Update Manager service
  
  vmon-cli --start updatemgrservice-control --start vmware-perfcharts
  
   4) If the issue persists after applying the above steps, please contact Broadcom Technical Support for further assistance.

Additional Information

• The general syntax is: chown -R [user]:[group] /path/to/folder