[InstallationError]
[Errno 28] No space left on device
vibs = VMware_locker_tools-light_10.3.10.12406962-14141615
Please refer to the log file for more details.
/var/log/esxcli.log only gives that exact message! Still, it should be fairly obvious a problem, there is no disk space left. Just, there is. The commonly accepted fix for this problem is to enable using your datastore as swap space:
Logon to web ui
Go to Host, Manage, System
Select the Swap entry and change it to be enabled
Pick a datastore of your choice, and enable Host cache and Local swap
(replace the highlighted version with the version you want to upgrade to )
This time, the update failed.
[InstallationError] Failed to setup upgrade using esx-update VIB: (None, "Failed to mount tardisk /tmp/esx-update-2123405/esxupdt-2123405 in ramdisk esx-update-2123405: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tardisks.noauto/esxupdt-2123405'") vibs = ['VMware_bootbank_esx-update_6.7.0-1.31.10764712'] Please refer to the log file for more details. [root@esxi:~]
Digging into the logs, I found the following clues
vmkernel.log: cpu1:2099635)ALERT: VisorFSTar: 1655: Unauthorized attempt to mount a tardisk cpu1:2099635)VisorFSTar: 2062: Access denied by vmkernel access control policy prevented creating tardisk
esxupdate.log: esxupdate: 2099635: root: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-10302608/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib64/python3.5/shutil.py", line 544, in move esxupdate: 2099635: root: ERROR: PermissionError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/esx-update-2123405 /esxupdt-2123405' -> '/tardisks.noauto/esxupdt-2123405 '
By the way, the esxupdate.log is in HEX format for some reason.
I recently decided that it is time to setup a new homelab. The old server is about 10 yrs old. The hardware does not allow any upgrade in CPU and Ram. VMWare ESXi was version 6.5, but I could not upgrade to version 6.7 because the network card was not in the list of supported NICs and so the upgrade failed. Last, but not least, the power consumption was at 200W.
It took less than 30 minutes to assemble the NUC and install VMWare ESXi 6.7. ( + 15 minutes to drive to the local hardware store to grab an USB keyboard once I realized that I would need one for the setup )
Today, I migrated the existing VMs from the old host to the new one.
ESXi does not include VMotion. VMotion costs a lot of money. I had read some articles which claimed to be best practice. But to be honest, using Veeam or SCP are not, what I consider “best” practice. I tried SCP, but it was so slooooow. Even a 50GB VM was estimated 11 hours to copy. And I have 30 VMs from just a couple of MB to 100GB.
You simply choose the “source” ESXi instance and select the VM to copy. Next you select the “target” ESXi. You can also choose, if the copy will be automatically updated to the target VM version.
It took only 30 minutes to copy a 50GB VM. Another 100GB VM was copied in 20 minutes.
The whole migration was done in only 5 hours. Not bad, isn’t it.
