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JDLangdon
Expert
Expert

Servers Not Responding

I just setup a new vSphere 4.1 environment consisting of 5 ESX host servers, 1 vCenter, and 1 SQL database server.  The environment, without any guests has been running for for days.  Last night I added two guest VM's and now today I noticed that all 5 host servers are listed as "not responding".

I can establish ping and ssh connectivity to all hosts.  I can even piont the VIC directly at the host and manage it that way but for some reason vCenter displays them as not responding.

I've checked the events and the only thing there is an alarm indicating that there has been a host connection failure.

So far I've tried connecting to the host, I've tried removing the host from vCenter, and I've tried restarting the vmware services on the host but each time the host will only stay connected for a few seconds.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Jason

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

I hate to ask, but.... You are using vCenter 4.1, correct?

Beyond that they are added in as FQDN and you have entries in DNS?

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jamesbowling
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Also, as a form of habit, place entries for the hosts in the hosts file on your vCenter server.  You can do the same for your hosts as well.

James B. | Blog: http://www.vSential.com | Twitter: @vSential --- If you found this helpful then please awards helpful or correct points accordingly. Thanks!
JDLangdon
Expert
Expert

Yup, I'm using vCenter 4.1 and all servers (host/vCenter) have the correct information in the hosts files and are pointing to the same DNS server.

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JDLangdon
Expert
Expert

One thing that I've noticed since yesterday is that the vCenter server is now part of an AD domain whereas prior to yesterday the server was a stand-alone workgroup server.  Could adding the vCenter to an AD domain cause this issue?

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JDLangdon
Expert
Expert

JDLangdon wrote:

One thing that I've noticed since yesterday is that the vCenter server is now part of an AD domain whereas prior to yesterday the server was a stand-alone workgroup server.  Could adding the vCenter to an AD domain cause this issue?

I just found this on a different site.  http://www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=49312  Haven't tried it yet but it appears that vCenter doesn't like to be added to an AD domain after it has been installed.  This seems kind of strange because I configured our existing 3.5 vCenter prior to joining in to the same AD domain.

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akumar86
Contributor
Contributor

Shouldn't be an issue. In our organization all the vCenters are part of the AD. I have added vCenter to the AD several times. Never faced an issue. I would suggest some Windows troubleshooting steps like using Perfmon to see if there is any unusual network/memory activity. Probably collecting a dump is also a good option when the server is actually freezing/hanging. Dump analysis will pin point the issue for us in this case.

--

Thanks and Regards

Anupam Kumar

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JDLangdon
Expert
Expert

akumar86 wrote:

Shouldn't be an issue. In our organization all the vCenters are part of the AD. I have added vCenter to the AD several times. Never faced an issue. I would suggest some Windows troubleshooting steps like using Perfmon to see if there is any unusual network/memory activity. Probably collecting a dump is also a good option when the server is actually freezing/hanging. Dump analysis will pin point the issue for us in this case.

Since there is no feeezing or hanging and considering that the network is also funtioning correctly, I think collecting a dump or using Perfmon will not reveal any useful information.

As I stated, the only thing that has changed within this environment is the introduction of the vCenter to AD and when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

jdl

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Just a guess:

Are there any domain/security policies in place which may cause the issue after you added the vCenter Server to the domain?

Did you take a look at the vpxa (and other) logs on the hosts, maybe you can find some entries which point to the issue.

André

JDLangdon
Expert
Expert

André Pett wrote:

Just a guess:

Are there any domain/security policies in place which may cause the issue after you added the vCenter Server to the domain?

From what I can tell Andre, there are no domain/security policies in place.  Either way, I re-installed vCenter and VUM on the same server while it was a member of the AD domain and everything is now functioning as expected.  I hvae no idea why adding the vCenter server to an AD domain would have caused this problem.

Thanks for participating in this discussion,

Jason

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