"Hardware monitoring service on this host is not responding or not available"

[mkbell]

I have experienced below issue on four(4) esxi 5.0.0, 623860

"Hardware monitoring service on this host is not responding or not available"

I applied both solution below which resolved two of the esxi but failed to resolve the remaining two esxi.

step 1:

1.Open an SSH session to the host. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt (1003892)

2.Run this command:

/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog restart

3.Go back to the Hardware Status tab on vCenter Server and click the Update link. It may take up to 5 minutes to refresh.

step 2:VMware KB: How to disable the CIM agent on the ESX/ESXi host

To disable the CIM agent on an ESXi host:

1.

Log in to the ESXi host in the Tech Support Mode as root. For more information, see Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677).

2.

Run these commands:

chkconfig sfcbd-watchdog off

chkconfig sfcbd off

/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog stop

Note: Changing the chkconfig disables the sfcbd service and is persistent across reboots.

To re-enable the CIM agent on the ESXi host, run these commands:

chkconfig sfcbd-watchdog on

chkconfig sfcbd on

/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog start

Note: To check the status of the agent on ESXi, run the below command.

/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog status

I need help please.

[RonPSSC]

I realize this post is outdated but I'm responding since I just experienced a similar issue and figured my solution might benefit others. I discovered my problem was simply a conflict with a configuration entry at the vCenter level which was competing with (manual) changes at the service level on an ESXi host.

Despite my attempts to re-enable the CIM agent at the host level using "chkconfig sfcbd-watchdog on" and "/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog start", the watchdog service would simply not stay active on reboots nor would manual startups have any positive effect of the actual h/w monitoring service at the vCenter level..

Resolution was simply changing the CIM Server Service Properties Startup Policy in vCenter/Configuration/Security Profile/Services to "Start and stop with the host". The Service Policy, for some odd reason, was set to "Start automatically if any ports are open, and stop when all ports are closed"