[CentOS] Journal Aborts in VMware ESX (Filesystem Corruption)

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Mon, 2011-02-14 at 12:08 +0000, Keith Beeby wrote: 
> Hi,
> So the 'fix' is applied directly to the host os,

no, to the *guest* OS instances.  [please, do not top-post].

> is this the correct thing to do?
> sysctl -w vm.min_free_kbytes = 8192

No space(s) I believe.

sysctl -w vm.min_free_kbytes=8192

I'm still not entirely clear as to why this setting should/will make a
difference in maintaining filesystem integrity.

On "Jun 20, 2007" in the aforementioned thread there is the comment:
"RHEL5 still needs a "fix" as well, and since it's not yet officially
supported from VMware for ESX my guess is it won't get a formal fix
until it is certified.  I plan to post a patched driver for RHEL5 on my
website in the next day or so." - but the comment is from *2007* and
RHEL5 is now certified.

<http://communities.vmware.com/message/881727#881727> seems like an
update that describes my issue; but even that is from 2008.

Reference: VMware KB#1001778 (Note: RHEL5U1 is long since released)

> On 14 Feb 2011, at 10:36, Kwan Lowe wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 7:00 PM, Adam Tauno Williams
> > <awilliam at whitemice.org> wrote:
> > em and force a check with "fsck -f" and
> >>>> occasionally find errors.
> >>> http://communities.vmware.com/message/245983
> >>> The setting we used to resolve was vm.min_free_kbytes = 8192
> >>> Previous to this we were seeing the error pop up every week or so.
> >> You made this change to the *virtual machine* [not the host OS]?
> >> This thread indicates this was with VMware Workstation and not ESX
> >> (correct)?
> > This was done on the CentOS and RHEL guests on VMWare ESX hosts.