ESX 3.5 - Host Connection State Error

[scotty_p]

I am running 3 ESX 3.5 servers in a cluster, managed by VC 2.5.

I monitor my environment with IPmonitor. I have been randomly getting the alerts below on one of my hosts.

Current value:

Host connection state - (State = Not responding)

Alarm: Host connection state

()

Description:

Alarm Host connection state on esx01.company.com changed from Green to Red

When I check Virtual Center, the host shows "not responding" and so do the virutal machines. It only happens briefly and the vm's never lose connectivity from the network. They don't even migrate to another host. The service console has 2 NICs (1 active, 1 standby). I don't know why this is happening. I'm not getting any other errors on the network.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Scott

[beyondvm]

try restarting the management agents on the host in question, this will not effect the VMs at all but might help fix this issue.

---

If you found any of my comments helpful please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

www.beyondvm.com

[kjb007 · Accepted solution]

What update are you running for ESX 3.5? This happens every now and then on my systems as well, and I believe vCenter Update 5 is supposed to fix an issue similar to this, but that includes a firewall between your vCenter and ESX.

-KjB

VMware vExpert

Don't forget to leave points for helpful/correct posts.

Message was edited by: kjb007

[scotty_p]

Thanks for the resopnse. We are running VC 2.5 U5, but I don't have a firewall between it and the hosts. Everything is local.

[lmonaco]

Have you tried to swap the active and standby link to try and isolate the problem? Just a thought...

[scotty_p]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have to get a window open to try that. Do you know if the active NIC fails, what kind of downtime is there before the standby picks up? Thanks.

[kjb007]

The problem doesn't appear to be with the NIC, but rather the vpx agent connection to vCenter. When the agent restarts its process, you go from connected, to not responding, back to connected.

-KjB

VMware vExpert

Don't forget to leave points for helpful/correct posts.

[scotty_p]

This actually was an issue with the the version. We needed Update 4 to correct the issue. Apparently it's a known issue with VMware.

Thanks for your help.