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Investigating an out of resources error on a datastore

Virtual machine fails to power on.
You cannot create a virtual disk.
There are more than 30000 files on the datastore. You can determine this with the find /vmfs/volumes/<data store name> -type f | wc -l command.
You see entries similar to these in the log file /var/log/vmkernel:

vmkernel.16:Jul 2 07:57:44 srvesx89 vmkernel: 16:23:58:16.675 cpu2:25710)WARNING: World: vm 25715: 699: init fn swap failed with: No swap file!
vmkernel.16:Jul 2 07:57:44 srvesx89 vmkernel: 16:23:58:16.741 cpu3:25712)WARNING: Swap: vm 25712: 1480: Failed to create swap file '/volumes/<volume UUID>/<swap file>.vswp': Out of resources

This article explains the limit to the number of files allowed on a datastore and the steps required to resolve the issue.

This issue occure because a VMFS-3 datastore can only have a maximum of 30720 files.

To resolve this issue:

Run this command to identify how many file handles are in use on the datastore:

vmkfstools –P -v 10 /vmfs/volumes/<data store label>

The output looks similar to:

VMFS-3.21 file system spanning 1 partitions.
File system label (if any): LUN-0
Mode: public
Capacity 34091302912 (32512 file blocks * 1048576), 1151336448 (1098 blocks) avail
Volume Creation Time: Tue Apr 3 16:09:50 2007
Files (max/free): 30720/30631
Ptr Blocks (max/free): 61440/61409
Sub Blocks (max/free): 3968/3906
UUID: 4612b48e-be24f710-2df7-0013725ddc92
Partitions spanned (on "lvm"):
vmhba2:1:0:1

The Files row describes the maximum number of files and the number of free file handles remaining.
Look for an excessive quantity of vmware*.log files. If there there is an over abundance of generational log files (vmware-###.log and up), delete them.

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