Unable to launch the vCenter UI.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• Unable to launch the vCenter UI.
• vCenter services fails to start with below errors:

root@VC# [ ~ ]# service-control --start --all
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/service-control", line 192, in <module>
    setupLogging('service-control', logMechanism='file', logDir=logDir)
  File "/usr/lib/vmware/site-packages/cis/utils.py", line 129, in __init__
    self._initLogFormat(program, level, logDir=logDir)
  File "/usr/lib/vmware/site-packages/cis/utils.py", line 155, in _initLogFormat
    create_dir(logDir)
  File "/usr/lib/vmware/site-packages/cis/utils.py", line 319, in create_dir
    os.makedirs(path)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/os.py", line 225, in makedirs
    mkdir(name, mode)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/log/vmware/cloudvm'

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the /storage/log filesystem entry in the /etc/fstab file is manually commented out using a hash symbol (#). Because the operating system's parser ignores any line starting with a hash and skips these instructions during the boot sequence, leaving the partition unmounted. Without access to the /storage/log partition, the vCenter Server Appliance cannot start its core services which leads to the UI inaccessible.

• /Storage/log partition is missing.

root@VC# [ ~ ]# df -k
Filesystem                                  1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                                         4096        0      4096   0% /dev
tmpfs                                         7148332        0   7148332   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                         2859336     9380   2849956   1% /run
tmpfs                                            4096        0      4096   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mapper/vg_root_0-lv_root_0              49222292 14629940  32059592  32% /
/dev/sda3                                      498900    37412    424792   9% /boot
/dev/sda2                                       10202     1978      8224  20% /boot/efi
/dev/mapper/autodeploy_vg-autodeploy         10210580       40   9670280   1% /storage/autodeploy
tmpfs                                         7148332        0   7148332   0% /tmp
/dev/mapper/db_vg-db                         10210580   334416   9335904   4% /storage/db
/dev/mapper/core_vg-core                     25618660 11812880  12479088  49% /storage/core
/dev/mapper/dblog_vg-dblog                   15367112    98340  14466368   1% /storage/dblog
/dev/mapper/archive_vg-archive               51282400 18682008  29962980  39% /storage/archive
/dev/mapper/imagebuilder_vg-imagebuilder     10210580       36   9670284   1% /storage/imagebuilder
/dev/mapper/lifecycle_vg-lifecycle          102618040  3981988  93377200   5% /storage/lifecycle
/dev/mapper/vtsdb_vg-vtsdb                  566534864    35444 537647608   1% /storage/vtsdb
/dev/mapper/vtsdblog_vg-vtsdblog             15367112    32804  14531904   1% /storage/vtsdblog
/dev/mapper/updatemgr_vg-updatemgr          102618040  1304468  96054720   2% /storage/updatemgr
/dev/mapper/netdump_vg-netdump                1005120       24    936696   1% /storage/netdump
/dev/mapper/vg_lvm_snapshot-lv_lvm_snapshot 514928896       28 488698496   1% /storage/lvm_snapshot
/dev/mapper/seat_vg-seat                    566534864   151444 537531608   1% /storage/seat
tmpfs                                            1024        0      1024   0% /var/spool/snmp

• /storage/log entry in /etc/fstab was manually hashed or commented out.

root@VC [ ~ ]# cat /etc/fstab
#system mnt-pt type options,nosuid,nodev dump fsck

UUID=#######-####-####-####-############ /storage/core ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,exec,auto,nouser,async 0 2
#UUID=#######-####-####-####-############ /storage/log ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,exec,auto,nouser,async 0 2
UUID=#######-####-####-####-############ /storage/db ext4 defaults,noatime,nodiratime,nosuid,nodev 0 2
UUID=#######-####-####-####-############ /storage/dblog ext4 defaults,noatime,nodiratime,nosuid,nodev 0 2

 

Resolution

Follow the below steps to fix this issue:

1. SSH to the vCenter.

2. Open the fstab file in a text editor: vi /etc/fstab

3. Locate the line for /storage/log, remove the # symbol at the beginning of the line, and save the file (:wq!).

4. Mount the filesystem mount -a

5. Verified the mount and checked for filesystem /storage/log visibility by running df -k or df -h from vCenter cli.

6. Restarted all vCenter services

service-control --status --all