Recently I experienced an error message when connecting to a vCenter environment, stating “Log Disk Exhaustion on <put you vCenter name here>”.
So the question was raised, how to increase the disk space for the log volume.
First, we need to figure out, which hard drive contains which type of data:
| Disk (VMDK) | Default Size (Tiny) | Mount Point | Purpose |
| VMDK1 | 12GB | / (10GB) /boot (132MB) SWAP (1GB) | Directory where the kernel images and boot loader configurations are stored. |
| VMDK2 | 1.8GB | /tmp | Directory used to store temporary files generated or used by services from vCenter Server |
| VMDK3 | 25GB | SWAP | Directory used when the system is out of memory to swap to disk |
| VMDK4 | 25GB | /storage/core | Directory where core dumps from VPXD process from the vCenter Server are stored |
| VMDK5 | 10GB | /storage/log | Directory where vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller store all logs for the environment |
| VMDK6 | 10GB | /storage/db | VMware Postgres database storage location |
| VMDK7 | 5GB | /storage/dblog | VMware Postgres database logging location |
| VMDK8 | 10GB | /storage/seat | Stats, Events, Alarms and Tasks (SEAT) directory for VMware Postgres |
| VMDK9 | 1GB | /storage/netdump | VMware Netdump collector repository that stores ESXi dumps |
| VMDK10 | 10GB | /storage/autodeploy | VMware Auto Deploy repository that stores the thinpackages used for stateless booting of ESXi hosts |
| VMDK11 | 10GB | /storage/imagebuilder | VMware Image Builder repository that stores the vSphere image profiles, software depots and VIB packages, such as driver VIBs and update VIBs. |
| VMDK12 | 100GB | /storage/updatemgr | VMware Update Manager repository where patches and updates are stored for Virtual Machine and ESXi hosts |
So, VMDK5 is the one, we need to manipulate, as is contains the logs.
Step one is, to increase the size of the disk, which is done via the vCenter GUI, as for any other machine.
Step two is, to expand the logical volume to use the entire disk space, including the one, we just added.
This step requires to access the vCenter appliance by SSH:
Log on as root.
run the following command:
com.vmware.appliance.system.storage.resize
This will resize all partitions on the appliance to be 100% of the size of disks attached and give you a summary of the changes.