How do you Disassociate an ESXi 6.5 host from a vCenter server - without the server?

[Ezra4no1]

Anyone know how to disassociate an ESXi 6.5 host from a vCenter server - without the server?

Spent several days duplicating our environment in a lab and someone took the server that was used for the vCenter and repurposed it and I don't have another box to use for a vCenter server at this time, but I don't want to lose all the work that was made on the hosts. I think I've seen this done on ESXi 5.x but not on 6.5.  Anyone have any ideas?

[daphnissov]

Right-click and remove from inventory. Disconnect first if necessary.

[IT_pilot]

I did not understand the meaning of your problem. Why do you want to disassociate an ESXi 6.5 host from a vCenter server? If you configure a new vCenter, you can connect ESXi hosts to it

[Ezra4no1]

Thanks for the response.

I believe you have to still have the Vcenter server up and running to remove from the inventory through vSphere, which unfortunately was not the situation I was in.

[IT_pilot]

I will explain my answer. The fact that ESXi was added to inventory vCenter means that this instance of ESXi is managed by this instance of vCenter. However, ESXi does not lose its functionality. With the fall of vCenter nothing sly happens, ESXi also continues to work. But VMs lose some of the features that were due to the presence of vCenter, for example DRS. But HA continues to work, since FDM agents are on the hosts themselves and vCenter does not depend on the performance. If vCenter can not be restored, then you can deploy it, and create a cluster, add hosts. ESXi will not swear that it manages an arch instance of vCenter and refuse to add to the new one. And if you do not want to restore vCenter, then do not worry about the fact that ESXi was once managed by this vCenter. I know only one problem when there is no vCenter - this is the case when the STRICT LOCKDOWN MODE is configured

"In strict lockdown mode, which is new in vSphere 6.0, the DCUI service is stopped. If the connection to vCenter Server is lost and the vSphere Web Client is no longer available, the ESXi host becomes unavailable unless the ESXi Shell and SSH services are enabled and Exception Users are defined. If you can not restore the connection to the vCenter Server system, you have to reinstall the host."

There are a few obsolete ones, but you can also read it.

vCenter is down - impact on VMware infrastructure. https://www.settlersoman.com/vcenter-is-down-impact-on-vmware-infrastructure/

[peetz]

Greetings,

you can disconnect a host from a vCenter server from the machine's Host Client.

Connect to https://esxihost/ui/ and log in as root.

On the Welcome page select "Disconnect from vCenter Server" in the Actions Menu.

- Andreas

[Tularis2]

peetz!

This is the Correct Answer! Thank you! I don't know why others have to muddy the water.