ESX 3.0.1 No Longer Connects to vCenter

[kernelphr34k]

Hello All,

I have recently updated 1 of 3 of my ESX 3.0.1 hosts.The new build number on the one I updated was 32039, now its 117504. I would like to upgrade to vSphere in the near future, but taking one step at a time....

The upgrade processs was done successfully, all expect the part where I'm trying to reconnect my host to virtual center 2.0.2.

The host currently shows dissconnected, so I try and connect it. I put in the root user, and the password... It seems to be okay as it goes through the wizard, finds my datacenters, VM's etc.. I click "finish" on the ready to complete, and 2 seconds later I get a pop-up that says "Permissions to perform this operation was denied"

I've search and searched, and been reading documents, but I can't find my answer. I thought it was a permission issue, but I didnt change anything. Just updated that single ESX host.

More details:

Lets see, I login to vcenter with my AD account. My AD account is in the administrator group on the physical vcenter server. I've given my AD account datacenter admin permissions. My other ESX hosts are 3.0.1, Build 42829.

Can anyone point me to a document, or help me out?

Thanks all!!

[RParker]

Remove the host from VC

Login to the ESX host with VI client.

Go to the user tab, delete vimuser and vpxuser.

Logoff VI Client.

Login to putty on that ESX host.

cd /etc/vmware/ssl

remove 2 files in that folder, and that's all that should be in there.

run: service mgmt-vmware restart

wait about 60 seconds try reconnecting again.

[kernelphr34k]

RParker,

Thanks for helping out!

• Removed from VC ok...

I find this odd, but I logged into the ESX server as root. Went to the users tab, and tried to delete vimuser, but got an error that said "Permission to perform this operation was denied"

I tried to delete another user out of courosity, and got the same error.

Tried to create a user, got the same error. Ugh..

Did I miss a patch or something? It's like my root account has minimal permissions.

Thanks!

[AndreTheGiant]

Just skip the user deletion/creation and go ahead to the next step.

Could also be sufficient the restart of the service.

Andre

**if you found this or any other answer useful please consider allocating points for helpful or correct answers

[AndreTheGiant]

It all the steps doesn't work you can also try this steps:

Remove the host from VC

Go in SSH and remove vpxa packet (rpm -e VMware-vpxa)

Re-add you host in VC

Andre

**if you found this or any other answer useful please consider allocating points for helpful or correct answers

[kernelphr34k]

AndreTheGiant,

Thank you for sticking around to help! It's really appreciated!

I find this really odd, but I can't ssh into my ESX server as root. I type in my password, and it just does not accept it.

• I can login as root to the ESX server with the VI3 client. But I can't do anything. Just about everything I do gets "permissions to perform operation was denied"

• I can ssh into the ESX server with a user I created. I gave this user sudo access. I can't login with VIC3, I get "permissions to perform operation was denied"

I'm trying to find these errors and a solution myself, but this is what I see in /var/log/vmware/hostd.log

Removed vmdb connection /db/connection/#16/

Sent /var/lib/vmware/hostd/docroot//cl

ient/clients.xml

Accepted authd connection from: 10.23.216.223:1382

Task Created : haTask--vim.SessionManager.login-174

: User root

Event 40 : User root@10.23.216.223 logged in

Task Completed : haTask--vim.SessionManager.login-174

_FetchPropertyPath got unexpected error of type N3Vim5Fault12NoPermission9Excep

tionE: vim.fault.NoPermission, for ref=ha-datacenter, path=datastore

_FetchPropertyPath got unexpected error of type N3Vim5Fault12NoPermission9Excep

tionE: vim.fault.NoPermission, for ref=ha-datacenter, path=network

_FetchPropertyPath got unexpected error of type N3Vim5Fault12NoPermission9Excep

tionE: vim.fault.NoPermission, for ref=ha-folder-vm, path=childEntity

AND

AuthFilter: System.Read not held on haTask--vim.SessionManager.login-170

AuthFilter: System.Read not held on haTask--vim.SessionManager.login-172

AuthFilter: System.Read not held on haTask--vim.SessionManager.login-174

_FetchPropertyPath got unexpected error of type N3Vim5Fault12NoPermission9Excep

tionE: vim.fault.NoPermission, for ref=ha-folder-vm, path=childEntity

RecurrentAvailableRefreshes: Auto-Refresh License Source avail

able...

RecurrentAvailableRefreshes: Auto-Refresh License Source avail

able Done

Thanks!

[kernelphr34k]

w00t!

Ok, cool... I have re-added the host to vcenter succesfully.

So I was seeing lots of errors on upgrading the patches.. I think I upgraded patches out of order, even though I had installed ESX-5874303 first.

So I didn't know where to start, and from all the errors it looked like a package issue..

So I used Michael Knights script to install all the 3.0.1 patches again.. I used veeam fast scp, started with critical... transfered all, and patched. Then transfered all security, and patched, then transfered all general, patched and rebooted.Once the host came back up, it just 'felt' better. So I just went ahead and tried to add to the VC. Poof, no issues, no errors nothing. Worked like a charm!

I'm prepping anways to upgrade to 3.5... and then to ESX4 in a few months.... Users like the idea of using 8 cores from the 4 they are using now.....

Thanks to ya both for the help and assistance!