VMWare license lost after hard reset

[Staalburger]

Hi Boys & Girls,

You'r my last hope (desperate enough?) Have inherited a VMware ESX 3.5.0 setup. Been working beautifull for the 6 months that I've been here. 4 hours ago it dissapeard off the network. Plugged screen onto it, dead, no ping nothing. Hardrest the server, boots up fine can ping vmware host. no VM servers, logged on and see they're powerd off. Click on the green play button tp start and get message "There are insufficient licenses to complete this opperation. Select the host.." so checked license tab and lo and behold no license. The server was bought from Dell, so I rang them...out of support "should have made a backup sir..." no s**t... doesn't help me and time is ticking.... any ideas plzzz!

Many thanks

Andre

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

do you have a Virtual Center Server running (with a license server running on the same)?

You may also want to find out to which My VMware account the licenses are registered. With this information you will be able to download the required license file.

André

[sparrowangelste]

try what a.p said.

also if you can ssh in try this: cat /etc/vmware/vmware.lic

[Staalburger]

No Virtual Centre I'm affraid as we only have the one VMWare server, and yes the login into VMWare site would'vebeen helpfull. We are trying to get hold of predessor but no luck sofar and his emails has been deleted... most prob by him.

Thanks for your input

[Staalburger]

I'm a Windows guy so pls help me to get to that path. I'm at the console and logged into the VMWare server.

[sparrowangelste]

you can just type in

cat  /etc/vmware/vmware.lic

and you should get the output.

or

cd /etc/vmware

and then do

ls 

you should see the file vmware.lic

type in

more vmware.lic

this only helps if its there.

if somehow its deleted this wont work

[a_p_]

You may also want to check whether there's a "lost+found" folder in the root directory of the host which contains some files.

cd /

ls -lisa

Maybe the hard reset caused a logical failure on the file system!?

André

[Staalburger]

Andre & Sparrow thanks 4 helping.

Got the licence file in the vmware directory... what now?

Andre, no -lisa file found.

Staalburger

[a_p_]

If the license file looks like this

INCREMENT PROD_ESX_VDI VMWARELM 2005.05 permanent uncounted \
    VENDOR_STRING="licenseType=Host;vmodl=esxVdi;desc=ESX Server \
    VDI;capacityType=cpuPackage;gp=14;exclude=BACKUP;count=16;kv=addon:ESX_FULL" \
    HOSTID=ANY ...
INCREMENT ESX_FULL_BACKUP VMWARELM 2005.05 permanent uncounted \
    VENDOR_STRING="licenseType=Host;vmodl=backup;desc=VMware \
    Consolidated Backup;capacityType=cpuPackage;count=16" \
    HOSTID=ANY ...

then open the Virtual Infrastructure Client and connect to the ESX host. In the GUI select the host and click the Configuration tab, followed by Licensed Features. Then click the "Edit..." link on the right to to "License Source" and select "Use Host License File" to upload the license file.

André

[Staalburger]

I've got the same output as you running cat. Followed the directions up to  - select "Use Host License File" to upload the license file. - When i hit the browse button it browse my local pc not the VM Server.

S

[Staalburger]

Don't know if it'll be any help but under the "use host license file" "file on host" says not installed, but i can def see it in the directory.

Thx

[sparrowangelste]

Staalburger wrote:

I've got the same output as you running cat. Followed the directions up to  - select "Use Host License File" to upload the license file. - When i hit the browse button it browse my local pc not the VM Server.

S

then copy the contents of the file to a text file called vmware.lic (not vmware.lic.txt)  and seelct that

taht should work

[a_p_]

You'll have to download the file from the host to your client using e.g. WinSCP. Unless SSH access is already enabled, follow http://kb.vmware.com/kb/8375637

André

[Staalburger]

We're making progress, got the license downloaded, created lic file, uploaded it now says license file installed but esx server edition now says unlicensed.

Why does everything have to be so difficult?!

Thanks again for helping so far

S

[a_p_]

Does the license file you uploaded has an "expires" entry? In this case this might not be the one we need.

André

[Staalburger]

I have the following as my lic file

INCREMENT PROD_ESX_FULL VMWARELM 2005.05 29-dec-2009 uncounted \

        VENDOR_STRING="licenseType=Host;vmodl=esxFull;desc=ESX Server \

        Enterprise;capacityType=cpuPackage;gp=14;exclude=BACKUP;count=16" \

        HOSTID=ANY ISSUED=29-Oct-2009 \

        NOTICE=FulfillmentId=2147196;name=xxxxxxxxxxxTS_OK \

        9381 0647 4F49 DCD5 5D27 3063 FFF7 2C3A 1DDA 1B4E \

        668D 682F 18BF CBF4 0DE9 114B C312 C8E8 C3F0 B09F 0CDD 9A80 \

        Cxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx7"

INCREMENT ESX_FULL_BACKUP VMWARELM 2005.05 29-dec-2009 uncounted \

        VENDOR_STRING="licenseType=Host;vmodl=backup;desc=VMware \

        Consolidated Backup;capacityType=cpuPackage;count=16" \

        HOSTID=ANY ISSUED=29-Oct-2009 \

        NOTICE=FulfillmentId=2147196;name=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx TS_OK \

        SIGN="08AF 28FA E343 0D67 539D 7063 CA10 4AA4 291B 1D0F 90CD \

        340B D644 0BD6 A394 0D8F 73B4 B30D D60A D9F6 7DAC 3E88 DF5B \

        xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

thx

[a_p_]

Can you confirm the file has not been modified, i.e. the line breaks are still Unix like line breaks? You can check this by opening the file with notepad, where the entries should show up as a single line.

André

[Staalburger]

I've loggend onto putty did the cat command, copied to clipboard and deleted lines before and after the file dump, save as vmware.lic

S

[Staalburger]

I've edited the file, it now only has two lines, still no go.

Thx

[impranayk]

get licenses from VMware portal or vmware.lic file. Try using that if works.