"Unable to access the specified host. It either does not exist, the server software is not responding, or ther is a network problem"

[Karunakar]

Hi All,

Have been trying to resolve this since very long.

I have a production server with ESX 3.0.1 . When trying to add this machine to the VC server and then I get the above given error.

Below are the resolutions I tried to resolve, but remained with no results.

1> remove the vpxa rpm from the machine, restarted mgmt-vmware service, and tried to readd the machine from VC. --> Error is the same.

2> When tried to make the entry of the vc server in the hosts file, tried to restart vpxa, and mgmt-vmware service, and tried to readd the machine from vc, --> Still error is the same.

3> All the default gateways of the management agent and vmkernel network are the proper, and can ping from vc to esx and esx to vc perfectly.

While trying to check the /var/log/messages file when trying to add the machine in vc, I get below errors.

Oct 29 10:41:13 ukcdcph0012-sc vmware-authd(pam_unix)[3746]: authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost= user=root

Oct 29 10:41:16 ukcdcph0012-sc vmware-hostd[3746]: Rejected password for user root from 127.0.0.1

I thought that this is some thing to do with the pam authentication, and made few changes in the "/etc/pam.d/vmware-authd" file as below.

#auth required pam_stack.so service=system-auth

#account required pam_stack.so service=system-auth

auth required pam_permit.so service=system-auth

account required pam_permit.so service=system-auth

After doing this the machine allowes connection from the root @ 127.0.0.1, but still when try to add the machine on vc, i get the error.

Checking the log file , /usr/sbin/vpxa stops very frequently.... like with in every 20 seconds. So machine is not able to connect to the VC server.

Let me know if there are any other alternate solution to get this machine on vc, so that i can migrate the VM and rebuild this machine perfectly.

Thanks,

Karunakar

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Forums - were you able to login to you ESX host using the VI Client with the root login - looking at the log information you provided it seems the root password was rejected - to add your ESX server to virtual center you need to use the root log in -

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer helpful or correct

[Karunakar]

Hi,

Thanks for the welcome.

I can access ESX from the VI client with the root login.

And when tried to add from VC, I can see the host details on the add host wizard, and also the storage, after selecting the finish button on the wizard, it throws out the error message.

Thanks,

Karunakar

[espi3030]

Have you tried creating a local user account by logging directly into the ESX host and granting that new local user shell access? That way you can use that new local user to add host in VC. Another thing to consider, does your root password contain special charachters? If so try changing it temporarily to something simple and try to add to VC just to see if the password is not being processed properly.

Hope this helps!

[Karunakar]

Finally finally finally, after trying a lot of solution, I found that the machine was added on to AD controller, and then this caused the issues, as the pam configuration was not dont correctly, which led to such an issue.

esxcfg-auth configurations were not done properly.

So , I had to rebuild the machine, thats the only option left in my court.

But please let meknow if any one else has resolved this issue.

-karunakar