ERROR: The host returns esxupdate error code:15

Today I was preparing some updates with VUM on Lenovo servers running vSphere 6.0. Things did not go as expected. While staging the patches I was greeted with this error.

ERROR: The host returns esxupdate error code:15. The package manager transactions is not successful. Check the update Manager log files and esxupdate.log files for more details.

Looking into the esxupdate.log file I could find the following entries:

2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: BootBankInstaller.pyc: ERROR: The pending transaction requires 242 MB free space, however the maximum supported size is 239 MB. 2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: An esxupdate error exception was caught: 2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last): 2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/usr/sbin/esxupdate", line 238, in main 2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: cmd.Run() 2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-5572656/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/Cmdline.py", line 148, in Run 2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-5572656/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 250, in InstallVibsFromSources

2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-5572656/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esximage/HostImage.py", line 600, in Stage 2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-5572656/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Installer/BootBankInstaller.py", line 719, in PreInstCheck

2018-10-08T08:23:18Z esxupdate: 31744883: esxupdate: ERROR: InstallationError: ('', 'The pending transaction requires 242 MB free space, however the maximum supported size is 239 MB.')

This seems to be a known issue for Lenovo servers. It turns out they cram a whole lot of drivers in there, more than other vendors. The only known workaround is to remove VIBs from the host that are not needed. This is also described in https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2144200.

To find out what VIBs are installed, log onto the affected host using SSH and run this command:

esxcli software vib list

Once you have identified a driver that you want to remove, put the host in maintenance mode and this command:

esxcli software vib remove -n qlogic-nx2-provider

In my case I wasn’t using the qlogic nx2 driver so I removed it. Now you should be able to update the host using VUM,