Problems starting vmware-hostd

[AronLander]

Hi,

vmware-hostd suddenly died last night for reasons unknown, and when trying to start it again by issuing "service mgmt-vmware restart", the restarting process works as supposed to and "service mgmt-vmware status" says that it is running, but when running "service --status-all | grep hostd" the hostd service is shown as not running.

When looking at the logs, I get entries like:

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine VMware[init]: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: relocation error: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: undefined symbol:

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u' exited after 0 seconds (quick failure 2)

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing cleanup command '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd-support'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine VMware[init]: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: relocation error: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: undefined symbol:

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u' exited after 0 seconds (quick failure 3)

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing cleanup command '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd-support'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine VMware[init]: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: relocation error: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: undefined symbol:

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u' exited after 0 seconds (quick failure 4)

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing cleanup command '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd-support'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine VMware[init]: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: relocation error: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: undefined symbol:

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u' exited after 0 seconds (quick failure 5)

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing cleanup command '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd-support'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine VMware[init]: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: relocation error: /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/vmware-hostd: undefined symbol:

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u' exited after 0 seconds (quick failure 6)

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: Executing cleanup command '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd-support'

Sep 22 09:36:49 name_of_the_machine watchdog-hostd: End '/usr/sbin/vmware-hostd -u', failure limit reached

I've been googling for this for a while now, and cannot find any solution to what could have caused this. Anyone have any idea?

[bulletprooffool]

Could it be that it has hubng rather than dies?

Try killing it as follows:

To stop the service and restart it:

# Log in as root to the
ESX host command-line via the physical console or via KVM connection.</div>

1. Navigate to the /var/run/vmware directory with the command:
   
   

   1. cd /var/run/vmware
   
   
   

# Run this command to list the files vmware-hostd.PID and watchdog-hostd.PID
:

1. ls -l vmware-hostd.PID
   watchdog-hostd.PID

</div>

1. Determine the Process ID (PID)
   management service. View the contents of the vmware-hostd.PID
   file with the command:
   
   

   1. cat vmware-hostd.PID
   
   
   For example:
   
   # cat vmware-hostd.PID
   1191[root@vmware]#
   
   

# Use the resulting PID to kill the
process.

Caution: Use the kill -9 command with care. It kills the process of the
supplied PID without exception or confirmation.

# kill -9 &lt;PID&gt;

In
this example you run kill -9 1191.

</div>

1. Delete the vmware-hostd.PID
   and watchdog-hostd.PID files with the
   command:
   
   

   1. rm vmware-hostd.PID
      watchdog-hostd.PID

   
   
   

2. Start the management service with
   the command:
   
   

   1. service mgmt-vmware start

[AronLander]

Thank you for the response, though I'm afraid that the mentioned file (/var/run/vmware-hostd-PID) exists nor that there is any vmware-hostd process running, thus, this seems to be caused by something else (guess I should have mentioned this in my first post).

I have also been recommended to check the disk space usage on the host, which neither seems to be the problem due to that I have plenty of disk space left.

[AronLander]

Neither the web interface was contactable, and it turned out the vmware hostd service had to be reinstalled, according to these instructions: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100284...