vCenter Server and vmkernel logs report the message: The ramdisk 'root' is full

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• ESXi is disconnected from vCenter Server.
• You will see the following error when creating a virtual machine on an affected ESXi host:
  
  A general system error occurred: failed to create journal file provider:failed to open "/var/log/vmware/journal/1349795091.4" for write:no such file"
  
  
• In vCenter Server and vmkernel logs, you see the message:

The ramdisk 'root' is full.
 

• You are using an IBM embedded ESXi installation.
• Cannot connect to ESXi host via SSH.
• The vdf -h command shows 99% of disk utilization on the root disk.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Cause

This issue occurs if the root ramdisk is filled with logs. IBM embedded ESXi points the scratch partition to the /ibm folder, which resides on the root ramdisk.

Resolution

To resolve this issue:

• Check the /var/spool/snmp directory to ensure there are no additional SNMP traps being created.
  
  If there are a significant number of .trp (trap) files:
  
1. Run this command:
   
   ls | xargs
   
   
2. Verify that the ramdisk now has free space using this command:
   
   vdf -h
   
   
• Back up or erase all files (if not required) in the /ibm directory and then restart the management agents on the ESXi host.

Additional Information

Ensure to redirect the scratch partition of the ESXi host to a persistent storage outside the ramdisk.

For more information, see Creating a persistent scratch location for ESXi (1033696).

Creating a persistent scratch location for ESXi 4.x/5.x/6.x
ESXi 5.x host is disconnected from vCenter Server due to sfcbd exhausting inodes
vCenter Server および vmkernel ログで次のメッセージが報告される: RAM ディスク 'root' がいっぱいです
vCenter Server 和 vmkernel 日志报告消息：ramdisk“root”已满