Connectivity issue from central management console

[s0ldad0]

Hi,

I have the following issue when connecting to a server from the central management/licensing server.

"Unable to access the specified host. It either does not exist, the server software is not responding, or there is a network problem."

I can use the Infrastructure client to connect to it directly.

The status is right circle green but disconnected. The server is licensed.

I can connecto to 3 other ESX servers on the same subnet from the management console.

Any ideas please?

[aldin]

can you ping that esx from manag. server?

try service mgmt-vmware restart on esx to restart host agent service

or try to remove that host and add it again.

[s0ldad0]

Hi, thx for esponse.

I can ping it via IP, Netbios & dns name.

I restarted service, no luck.

I removed it and re added it no luck.

I removed it, restarted service then readded and no luck.

[s0ldad0]

I does find it on connect, it also finds server type and build and lets me add it to the end.

It is when it does it's read of deeper settings with the status % bar down below that it fails.

All NICs are set to auto.

All NICS are setup identical to the other 3 ESX hosts that work.

[aldin]

do you have Virtual Center Server or VirtualCenter Foundation? because Foundation is limited to 3 esx servers.

try service vmware-vpxa restart

and vmware-hostd

[s0ldad0]

Hi we have Virtual Center Server.

Thos commands didn't work.

[aldin]

if virtual center works with other esx servers it can not be up to VC, it must be up to esx server.

you restart host agent for management, you can try restart esx .....

when you add esx to VC it creates vpxa user on esx, you can remove that user from esx and than try to add esx again to VC and new vpxa user will be automaticly recreated.

1) Delete the ESX object in VC

2) Log with SSH on ESX server

3) Delete VPXuser Account (userdel -r vpxuser)

4) Restart Management services (serivces mgmt-vmware restart)

5) Go back on VC

6) Add the ESX host again

or you can manually reinstall the VC agent

[s0ldad0]

Hi sorry, but this didn't work.

I should mention that this server was 3.01 and now its 3.02

when it was 3.01 it worked. we removed it, upgrded it and now it wont connect.

Does that help at all?

[aldin]

are the other servers 3.01 or 3.02? and what version of VC did you have?

could you post output of

rpm -qa | grep vpxa

from problematic esx and from one that works.

[s0ldad0]

Not working:

VMWare-vpxa-2.5.0-64192

Working:

VMWare-vpxa-2.5.0-64192

[admin]

When you initially add the ESX server, does it show as normal/connected for a few seconds before becoming disconnected?

If so, check that the VirtualCenter server can receive data on UDP 902 from the ESX server.

This can be confirmed by running packet capturing software, such as wireshark, on the VC server.

Are your disks full or near full? Run the following command from the ESX server:

df -h

[s0ldad0]

That is exactly what is happening - connect for a few then disconnet.

Disks are not full.

[admin]

This sounds like a heartbeat problem.

ESX servers regularly send "pings" over UDP port 902 to the VC server.

If the VC server does not see these, it will disconnect the host.

[s0ldad0]

UDP port was open - 3 other servers in same LAN can connect to central management server. Wireshark confirms UDP 902 is correct.

[admin · Accepted solution]

Try the instructions listed on

[s0ldad0]

That seems to have gotten me to the next level, so I will say thanks and mark it answered!!:D