VMWARE: Cannot update host with ESXCLI due to error OSError: [Errno 28] No space left on device

When updating a ESXI HOST with esxcli, you may get this:

Running command:

esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.5.0-20180104001-standard \
-d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

Output:

[InstallationError]
Failed updating the bootloader: Execution of command /usr/lib/vmware/bootloader-installer/install-bootloader failed: non-zero code returned
return code: 1
output: ERROR: ld.so: object ‘/lib/libMallocArenaFix.so’ from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/lib/vmware/bootloader-installer/install-bootloader”, line 238, in <module>
main()
File “/usr/lib/vmware/bootloader-installer/install-bootloader”, line 208, in main
if isInstaller():
File “/usr/lib/vmware/bootloader-installer/install-bootloader”, line 199, in isInstaller
rc, bootOptions, _stderr = execCommand(“/sbin/bootOption -roC”)
File “/usr/lib/vmware/bootloader-installer/install-bootloader”, line 80, in execCommand
stderr=PIPE, close_fds=True)
File “/build/mts/release/bora-7388607/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib64/python3.5/subprocess.py”, line 676, in __init__
File “/build/mts/release/bora-7388607/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib64/python3.5/subprocess.py”, line 1221, in _execute_child
OSError: [Errno 28] No space left on device
vibs = VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.5.0-1.38.7526125
Please refer to the log file for more details.

Resolution to this in specific = enable swap on datastore in web client:

No need to reboot for changes to be effective 🙂