If a filesystem has unused space on it, but the number of inodes has reached the maximum, no new files can be created. This can appear like a full filesystem.
You must determine if the ESX console file system and the VMFS file system have reached the inode or filesystem limit.
To determine if the ESX console file system and the VMFS file system have reached the inode or filesystem limit:
1.Gain root access to the command line.
◦For ESX, open a SSH session.
◦For ESXi, see Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677)
.
2.On the ESX host, run the command:
[root@esx /]$ stat -f /
The output appears similar to:
File: "/"
ID: 0 Namelen: 255 Type: ext2/ext3
Blocks: Total: 1259079 Free: 898253 Available: 834295 Size: 4096
Inodes: Total: 640000 Free: 580065
In this example, there are 640000 inodes total and 580065 are free, so there are inodes available.
3.If, however, you have exhausted the inode limit, you must remove some files. To free some space, see Freeing disk space on an ESX Server in Investigating disk space on an ESX or ESXi host (1003564) or Freeing ESXi inodes (1008643).
To generate a list of log files that may be candidates for deletion, run:
find / -path "/vmfs" -prune -o -type f -size +50000k -exec ls -l '{}' \;
This command seeks out files 50,000 KB (50MB) or larger, skips the /vmfs directory where virtual machines may be located, and provides detailed output for each file. This may return locally-stored ISO files, log bundles, large log files, etc.
Some typical paths where excess files may be located are:
◦/tmp/vmware-root
◦/var/core
◦/var/log/vmware/aam/rule
Warning:
◦Carefully review the files in question before removal using rm. Files cannot be recovered after deletion.
◦Do not delete log information unless absolutely necessary. Consider archiving older logging elsewhere.
4.Run the following command against the VMFS volume:
vmkfstools -P -v 10 /vmfs/volumes/466e7eb9-3692da25-a15c-001321caa748
The output appears similar to:
VMFS-3.21 file system spanning 1 partitions.
File system label (if any): lun1 (2)
Mode: public
Capacity 5100273664 (4864 file blocks * 1048576), 148897792 (142 blocks) avail
Volume Creation Time: Tue Jun 12 12:08:41 2007
Files (max/free): 30720/30707
Ptr Blocks (max/free): 61440/61436
Sub Blocks (max/free): 3968/3963
UUID: 466e7eb9-3692da25-a15c-001321caa748
Partitions spanned:
vmhba1:0:1:1
In this example, none of the values for Files, Ptr Blocks and Sub Blocks are at zero so there are available VMFS entries for new files.
See Also
