Rebuild ESX host

[Dr_Virt]

We have an ESX 3.5 host that is just flaking out. Have wasted too much time trouble shooting it. Looking to rebuild it.

The question is, is there any way to back up the configuration so that when it is restored to service it picks up its luns and vnics? Will VC do this on the fly?

[malaysiavm]

when you rebuild your virtual center, the only thing you may need is to backup your SQL DB if you need that. The configuration on virtual switch, vmkernal, Storage LUN and etc are base on ESX host. Once your new virtual center is up, you just re-add the host to the new virtual center, and everything will be back to normal.

Please take note you may need to backup your license file if you run your virtual center as a license server as well.

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[weinstein5]

I do not think they were referring to rebuilding VC but the ESX host -

[malaysiavm]

Maybe I am little confuse on that. For our environment, we dun really need a backup on the ESX host. the reason of it is easy to rebuild and reconfigure an ESX host if we need to do so. for the LUN and datastore, is follow the SAN LUN assigned from the SAN box follow by the HBA card we have on the ESX host. Therefore, if we rebuild the ESX host, we will 1st unplug all the HBA cable to ensure we dun accidently wipe off any of the datastore we had in the farm. To reconfigure the virtual switch we have in the ESX host, will not take use more than 10 mins job. This can be easily done from the virtual center.

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[petedr]

You could make a copy of the /etc folder so you have it for reference. Most of the host configuration files are under /etc