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7 Replies Last post: Aug 19, 2009 1:13 AM by bulletprooffo…  

Removing a Dead ESX Host from Virtual Center posted: Aug 18, 2009 8:46 AM

Click to view mike.caddy's profile Enthusiast 48 posts since
Jun 2, 2008

I have an Expired (as in dead!) host in my virtual center system, I want to remove it, however, when I try to remove I get an error

"Unable to contact the specified host ....."

Re: Removing a Dead ESX Host from Virtual Center

1. Aug 18, 2009 9:02 AM in response to: mike.caddy
Click to view ShanVMLand's profile Expert 248 posts since
Mar 6, 2009

Try to restart the License Server if that dead ESX used this License server.

Shan

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Re: Removing a Dead ESX Host from Virtual Center

3. Aug 18, 2009 9:13 AM in response to: mike.caddy
Click to view AndreTheGiant's profile Guru 5,984 posts since
Aug 28, 2008
Create an empty cluster, move ESX to that cluster and remove the cluster.

Andre

Re: Removing a Dead ESX Host from Virtual Center

5. Aug 18, 2009 10:45 PM in response to: mike.caddy
Click to view AndreTheGiant's profile Guru 5,984 posts since
Aug 28, 2008
The host is in disconnected state?
If you have a spare hardware you can install a ESX with the same name, add and then remove.

Andre

Re: Removing a Dead ESX Host from Virtual Center

6. Aug 18, 2009 11:12 PM in response to: mike.caddy
Click to view lamw's profile Champion 2,818 posts since
Nov 27, 2007
Do you have VI Perl Toolkit or vCLI or VIMA by any chance?

You can try this Perl script to see if it does the job, it'll prompt you to confirm the removal of your ESX(i) host and provide some information such as the current connectionState seen by vCenter.

Here is a sample execution:

--server = <vcenter_server>
--username = <vcenter_username>
--host = <host_to_remove>

[vi-admin@vima ~]$ ./removeHostFromvCenterByForce.pl --server reflex.primp-industries.com --username primp --host kang.primp-industries.com
Enter password:

Found Host: kang.primp-industries.com with state: notResponding
Would you like to remove this host from vCenter? y|n
y
Destroying host "kang.primp-industries.com"
Successfully removed "kang.primp-industries.com"!


You should see a task to remove the host from vCenter and that'll take maybe 30seconds or so....

Attached to this reply is removeHostFromvCenterByForce.pl

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
vGhetto Script Repository
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
http://twitter.com/lamw

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/vexpert_silver_icon.jpg

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Re: Removing a Dead ESX Host from Virtual Center

7. Aug 19, 2009 1:13 AM in response to: lamw
Click to view bulletprooffool's profile Master 806 posts since
Apr 14, 2009
Nice lamw - one for the toolkit!

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