RP4VM: ESXi Splitter and ramdisk usage

Hello Community!

When building a new lab environment I ran into problems with VUM sometime failing to scan the host. After searching through the logs, it showed that the ramdisk was full:

2015-08-03T10:04:16.746Z cpu0:119094)WARNING: VisorFSRam: 351: Cannot extend visorfs file /usr/share/vua/libcrypto.so.1.0.1 because its ramdisk (root) is full.

2015-08-03T10:04:16.758Z cpu1:119094)WARNING: VisorFSRam: 351: Cannot extend visorfs file /usr/share/vua/libssl.so.1.0.1 because its ramdisk (root) is full.

2015-08-03T10:04:16.769Z cpu0:119094)WARNING: VisorFSRam: 351: Cannot extend visorfs file /usr/share/vua/vua because its ramdisk (root) is full.

After further cumbersome investigation I found the root cause: when the esx-splitter / kdriver is installed, over half the ramdisk is constantly used. When VUM now tries to scan a host there is either just enough free space to run (1M free left when VUM / vua is running) for it to succeed or not.

Before Install:

Ramdisk	Size	Used Available Use% Mounted on
root	32M	180K	31M   0% --
etc	28M	320K	27M   1% --
opt	32M	0B	32M   0% --
var	48M	620K	47M   1% --
tmp	256M	80K	255M   0% --
hostdstats	553M	1M	551M   0% --

After Install:

Ramdisk	Size	Used Available Use% Mounted on
root	32M	17M	14M  55% --
etc	28M	316K	27M   1% --
opt	32M	0B	32M   0% --
var	48M	984K	47M   2% --
tmp	256M	100K	255M   0% --
hostdstats	178M	1M	176M   0% --

This is true for all ESXi versions (5.1, 6.0), installation methods (direct to local disk, usb-stick + configured scratch location), splitter versions (4.2.0.m104, 4.3.0.c112) and ESXi-Images (Standard, IBM/Lenovo customized).

VUM Failing

Ramdisk	Size	Used Available Use% Mounted on
root	32M	20M	11M  64% --
etc	28M	300K	27M   1% --
opt	32M	0B	32M   0% --
var	48M	480K	47M   0% --
tmp	256M	20K	255M   0% --
hostdstats	178M	1M	176M   0% --

The additional 3M disappear when the host is rebooted.

Any hints how to find out which files allocate that extra 3MB are appreciated.

To be honest, I can't remember if this caused problems in the old lab environment.

But with the extensive effects that a full ramdisk can have and their possible impacts in a production environment, I really wonder if this is expected behavior? Anf if yes: can this maybe changed with some kind of tweak-parameter?

P.S.: What is the intended use of the offline-bundle provided with the 4.3 deployment kit? In the provided state it is pretty useless: It shows not applicable for 6.0 (because this version is missing from meta-data) and even with tuning the meta-data the splitter can't be installed via VUM (because the bundle does not have a signature).