Tag: VIB

Remove VIB – Device or resource busy

Today, I was playing around with some vSphere Installation Bundles (VIB) and ran into an issue when I tried to remove vib:

esxcli software vib remove -n vmware-esx-KoraPlugin 
 [InstallationError]
 Error in running rm /tardisks/:
 Return code: 1
 Output: rm: can't remove '/tardisks/': Device or resource busy

Even adding the –force attribute did not help in this situation.

The following workaround seemed to be working for me:

  1. Stophostd on theESXi host – this will be non-disruptive to yourVMs 
    /etc/init.d/hostd stop
  2. Runlocalcli to uninstallVIB 
    localcli software vib remove -n vmware-esx-KoraPlugin

    Note: We need to run localcli, since esxcli is not available if hostd is stopped

  3. Starthostd on theESXi host 
    /etc/init.d/hostd start
  4. Verify thatvmware-esx-KoraPlugin no longer shows up 
    esxcli software vib list | grep  vmware-esx-KoraPlugin

You should no longer see the VIB installed on your ESXi host.
Localcli is not widely spread within the community and mainly used by VMware’s Technical Support. It provides more troubleshooting capabilities, even if hostd is not running.