Registering VM's on new host (error)...

[FatDaddyRich]

Original Problem:

• ESX 4.1 host - running on Sun blade ... status shows as "disconnected" in vCenter.
  
• Several VM's on "disconnected" ESX host are still ping'able and working fine.
  
• ESX is technically still running ok as are the VM'son "disconnected" status. I suspect this is why VMotion doesn't kick in.
  
• All ESX 4.1 hosts are on Sun blades and use shared storage (not a problem, just some backgroung for ya')
  

My Solution:

• RDP'd to VM's on "disconnected" host. Powered them down.
  
• SSH to working ESX 4.1 host on residing on different/working blade
  
• Ran vmware-cmd -s register command against VMX file to register powered off VM's onto working ESX host.
  
• No errors after running command and VM's now appear on "working" ESX 4.1 host/blade.
  

Resulting issue:

I inadvertantly failed to power off 1 of the VM's prior to registering the VMX file on the new/working ESX host. The subject VM now appears as "invalid" in vCenter and will not power on (don't recall the exact error). Is there something I can do to recover the "invalid" VM?

Thanks,

[MauroBonder]

Hi And Welcome !!

1. Right-click the virtual machine and choose Remove from Inventory.
   
   Caution: Do not choose Delete from Disk.
   
2. Click on the ESX host and, using the Summary tab, locate the appropriate datastore in which the virtual machine exists.
3. Right-click the datastore and click Browse Datastore.
4. Browse to the directory of the virtual machine.
   
   Note: If you have renamed the virtual machine in the VMware Infrastructure Client, use the original name given to it.
   
5. Right-click the .vmx file of the virtual machine and choose Add to Inventory.
6. Power on the virtual machine.

Discussion moved from vSphere Upgrade & Install to VMware ESX™ 4

[FatDaddyRich]

Thanks for the response! Unfortunately, the "Add to Inventory" option is greyed out.

The VM in question is currently powered off. I guess I need to confirn that root has full perms on the SAN storage (pretty sure it does). Is it posssible that vCenter still thinks the VM is registered on the disconnected ESX host/blade thus vCenter won't allow me to register the VM on a different, working host within the same cluster?

[vGuy]

FatDaddyRich wrote:

Is it posssible that vCenter still thinks the VM is registered on the disconnected ESX host/blade thus vCenter won't allow me to register the VM on a different, working host within the same cluster?

yes, it might be possible...can you ensure there are no VM processes still running on the disconnected host (ps auxwww | grep -i <vm name>). Then restart the mgmt services and vCenter server service and try to add the VM back to inventory.

Can also create a empty VM container and instead of creating new virtual disks in the wizard -> select add existing virtual disks and point to problem VM's disks..hth!

[FatDaddyRich]

Well, perms to the SAN storage weren't the issue. I wasn't able to SSH to the failing blade/ESX host via putty or the ILOM console. It wouldn't accept logins (yet VM's continued to run). Odd.

Anyhow, took an outage and shutdown all of the VM's on the ESX host reporting as "disconnected" in vCenter. Reset the blade and ESX came back up.  Orphaned VM's were no longer orphaned and were recovered. I immediately put this ESX host into maintenenace mode after it came up so no VM's would VMotion back to it. Sun 6450 blades have been nothing but trouble for me. Thank goodness I've decommissioned most of them for newer blade h/w.

Thanks for the responses.