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barnette08
Expert
Expert

Install Not Keeping Settings After Reboot

Hey all,

I've run into a situation where after installing ESXi, I put in my IP information and then reboot the server.  After the host comes back online all settings including the password are gone.  Has anyone run into this before?  I'm looking at hostd.log for help, any other logs that might help?

TIA.

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vGuy
Expert
Expert

Is the host installed on SD-card? You might want to check  if the local storage where ESXi is installed is healthy. Looks like the settings are stored in RAM and are not being written to disk.

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barnette08
Expert
Expert

I’ve tried on SD card and boot from SAN, but both get the same result. 

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barnette08
Expert
Expert

Any thoughts on the log to look at  for this?  I'm not finding anything helpful in the ones I'm looking at.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Some thoughts:

  • did you already verify the installation image's checksum to ensure that it's healthy?
  • run /sbin/backup.sh 1 from the command line, and post the command's output
  • run ls -l /bootbank/state.tgz to see whether the file has been updated
  • run cat /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root to see whether /sbin/auto-backup.sh is listed

André

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barnette08
Expert
Expert

Here's what I get:

[root@~] /sbin/backup.sh 1

Saving current state in /bootbank

Clock updated.

Time: 14:03:58   Date: 08/24/2020   UTC

[root@~] ls -l /bootbank/state.tgz

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         67039 Aug 24 14:03 /bootbank/state.tgz

[root@~] cat /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root

#min hour day mon dow command

1    1    *   *   *   /sbin/tmpwatch.py

1    *    *   *   *   /sbin/auto-backup.sh

0    *    *   *   *   /usr/lib/vmware/vmksummary/log-heartbeat.py

*/5  *    *   *   *   /bin/hostd-probe.sh ++group=host/vim/vmvisor/hostd-probe/stats/sh

00   1    *   *   *   localcli storage core device purge

*/10 *    *   *   *   /bin/crx-cli gc

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

This looks ok to me.

What you may check is if /etc/vmware/esx.conf gets updated after making any changes, and whether this file (with its current state) is included in the state.tgz after a backup.


André

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barnette08
Expert
Expert

So you're saying to a compare/diff on the two esx.conf files before and after a reboot?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Yes,

  1. make a configuration change, and check if the esx.conf got updated with that change
  2. run the backup script
  3. download state.tgz, extract esx.conf, and check whether the modifications from step 1 are included

If the changes exist, reboot the host, then check the esx.conf again.


André

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barnette08
Expert
Expert

So it turns out, after chatting with support that the bootbank is getting mounted to /tmp, which makes sense that settings aren't persisting.  We believe it's a BIOS FW related issue since the filesystem is getting mounted to /tmp prior to the boot media's module loading.

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          22 Aug 24 17:09 bootbank -> /tmp/_bootbank9vftlphl

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