Manual Steps to Clear VMFS Partition on Back SSD: (HX C240 only)

Introduction

This document describes the Springpath datastore cleanup from Elastic Sky X Integrated (ESXi) Command Line Interface (CLI).

During HX cluster clean-up, 240M4 server needs to clear the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) partition on the back Solid State Drives (SSD).

Steps

Here are the manual steps in order to clear the VMFS partition on the back SSD:

Step 1. In order to display the partitions on the ESXi, run esxcli storage core device partition list as shown in the image.

Step 2. In order to remove the coredump file, run esxcli system coredump file remove --force as shown in the image.

Step 3. In order to deactivate the dump partition, run esxcfg-dumppart -d as shown in the image.

Step 4. In order to remove the /scratch partition, run rm /scratch as shown in the image.

Step 5. In order to identify the process ID of the process vmsyslogd, run ps | grep vmsyslogd as shown in the image.

Step 6. In order to kill the vmsyslogd process, run kill -9 <PID of vmsyslogd> as shown in the image.

Step 7. In order to unmount the Springpath volume, run esxcli storage filesystem unmount -p /vmfs/volumes/Springpath-<xxx> as shown in the image.

Step 8. In order to delete the Springpath datastore, run

partedUtil delete  /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____INTEL_SSDSC2BB120G4_____________________PHWL535601R6120LGN__ 1 as shown in the image.

Note: You can run the partedUtil command line utility in order to directly manipulate the partition tables for local and remote SAN disks on ESXi and ESX.

Step 9. In order to list the coredump partition, run esxcli system coredump partition list as shown in the image.

Step 10. In order to reboot the ESXi host, run reboot as shown in the image.

Step 11. Once the ESXi is reloaded, verify that the Springpath datastore is no longer mounted from User Interface (UI) as shown in the image.  

Step 12. In order to display the partitions on the ESXi, run esxcli storage core device partition list as shown in the image.

Step 13. You will not see the deleted partition anymore.