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ronnutter
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Problem with Migrate between hosts.

Trying to get vMotion to work between hosts.  I can migrate from local to iSCSI storage back and forth without a problem.  I cant migrate/vMotion between hosts.  I have two identical hosts.  I tried to migrate from local to iSCSI and then to the other host but still no joy.

I have tried a separate VMKernal Port for vMotion and just enabling vMotion on the existing VMKernal port. Dont have success with either one.

Because of my setup, I only have one vlan/network segment to work with - wouldnt think that is a problem.

I have been looking for a vMotion check list to go against but havent had any luck.  Trying to get this working before I go to VCP class in a few weeks.

Havent been able to find any errors or problems that would explain why this isnt working.

Would appreciate any suggestions/assistance.

Ron

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timevisser
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

For vMotion to work the vm's have to be within the same datacenter.  If they are not, you have to do a cold migration.  Some requirements to check:

  • Ensure the VM is not connected to a CD-Rom or Floppy Drive
  • Cannot be clustered with another vm
  • Both ESXi servers must use same share storage
  • Both ESXi must be connected via gig or better
  • The two servers must have compatible cpus
  • access to same physical network

These are some of the requirements.  To understand them all include vmotion storage, check out the 5.x Admin guide.  Take a look at virtual machine management/migration and migration with vmotion.  By reviewing these, you will be able to see what the issue is.  Here is the URL to the guide, VMware vSphere 5.1.

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weinstein5
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What error do you get when you vMotion?

I have also moved this to a more appropriate forum

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

I had put it in the VCP forum because I was trying to reach others of a similar skill level. Since I am just getting starting in learning VMware, I thought the question might be of benefit to others learning VMware on the way to getting VCP certified.

When I select the other ESXi host, the compatibility check fails with this error - The operation is not allowed in the current connection state of the host.

I am using two Mac Mini's running VMware Fusion with ESXi running under that. Both Mac Mini's have 16GB of ram and have an identical amount of disk space assigned in Fusion to ESXi. I have another server that is running FreeNAS to serve as my iSCSI host.  I can migrate the storage for a vm from the local storage it is using to the iSCSI server with no problem.  I can start up the VM with no problem after the migration.  I can move it back to the local storage on it's host VM server with no problem and get it to start up.

I dont have any policies or pools in place that I think would explain this.

Dont know what to look at or where to look to explain the problem.

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timevisser
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Here are a few things to try.  Restart the vcenter service, login into ESXI and power on the vm.  That last one did it for me when I got this error.  Here is a post on this I found when I was troubleshooting, VMware: The operation is not allowed in the current connection state of the host | VMpros.  Also if you are running DRS make sure that none of the hosts are in maintenance mode.  This was another thing I found out when I was turning on and off of nobs to test and learn. 

ronnutter
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I tried shutting down vcenter (using the appliance) and it appeared to hang after starting the embedded database.  Had to delete and reinstall.  Did a regen of the cert first thing out since I could login to the vsphere web client.  After doing a reboot of vcenter from within the vcenter managment portal, I was able to vmotion.  Ran it through its paces vmotioning between my two esxi hosts changing which iSCSI lun that it moved to and also trying the local datastore.

I appreciate your help on this.  Havent looked at DRS yet.  Just started working with ESXi at work and I am trying to get familiar with as much as I can before I go to class in a few weeks.

Havent noticed one quirk.  vCenter appliance will hang on restart if I change from dhcp to static and regen the cert.  My work around for now is to put a dhcp reservation in so that it always gets the same address.  Figure that it is probably due my running it in 8GB ram on the mac mini.

Ron

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timevisser
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Glad you got it working.

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