pain in the butt with vmware-webaccess

[bugfixer]

hello everybody,

since a few weeks i am running a stand alone esx 3.0.0 server, with 4 virtual machines on it. the installation was pretty straight forward. downloading the VI client from http://ip_of_esx_server worked without interrupts. but now, a few weeks later, i tried to download the vi client again, but the only thing i can see is a blank website brought by firefox. i already read a bunch of articles from this community. i traced back all possible error causes -> nothing! i tried these:

\- port scan which showed listening ports 80 and 443

\- restarting /etc/init.d/vmware-webAccess

\- checking /etc/hosts for rightness -> O.K

\- output of netstat and lsof looks damn good!

\- ping to the esx FQDN delivers the correct address

it still doesnt work. internet explorer says "can´t display website" and firefox shows blank, no matter i try http or https.

i really dont know where is the problem. the curious things is that this config already worked for me! there were no changes applied, no firewalls put between or whatever. so if you folks have some suitable ideas, please dont hesitate!

one more thing: does anybody know where i can download the VI client?? if anybody knows a url, please let me know.

thank you

Message was edited by:

kix1979 to remove offensive wording

[VirtualKenneth]

This command gives you back a "running"?

service --status-all | grep webAccess

I don't know if you have access to the VirtualCenter media? (VI Client is on there as well)

Alternately you can SCP/FTP into your ESX box and get it from there:

var/lib/vmware/hostd/docroot/client

[bugfixer]

thank you a lot. i finally found the VI client where you told me. stupid me was looking for it under /usr/lib/vmware...

i also tried the command

#service --status-all | grep webAccess

and it returned:

webAccess (pid 1053) is running...

but still no chance to access the web frontend

[VirtualKenneth]

Check this dir:

/var/lib/vmware/hostd/docroot

for the existence of the index.html

I assume you already tried connecting from another workstation to be certain that is hasn't to do with a local issue? (I've had a situation in where I couldn't connect via a certain client but I could via another one..)

[bugfixer]

the index.html does exist. i also tried to reboot the whole esx server without success. i also tried to connect from different clients, but no way.

i noticed one thing: if i restart no matter which service throught CLI, e.g.

/etc/init.d/ssh restart

i always get a green "\[OK]" after i entered the command and waiting for 1 or 2 seconds. but i feel strange when i restart the vmware-webAccess service the same way. there does not show up a \[OK] or whatever indicator. there is nothing, also not a millisecond delay. it just resumes as fast as a "echo" command. here the shell back quotes:

/etc/init.d/vmware-webAccess restart

Stopping vmware-webAccess:

Starting vmware-webAccess:

but as I said, there is no status indicator like the green colored "\[OK]".

i get this when restarting ssh:

/etc/init.d/sshd restart

Stopping sshd: \[ OK ]

Starting sshd: \[ OK ]

[VirtualKenneth]

I have the idea that somehow your whole management page disappeared since there must be at least a index.html.

edit: I've checked the VMware CD (rpms folder) to see if I could identify something like the webAccess (to reinstall just that single part) but I couldn't find is.

I thing the best thing you can do is reinstall the system while preserving the VMFS volume (so you don't loose your VM's)

BTW also check this, if you found anything helpful yet

http://www.vmware.com/community/help.jspa#awardrp

[wila]

[

it still doesnt work. internet explorer says

"can´t display website" and firefox shows blank,

no matter i try http or https.

Try wget from a linux host as in:

wget http://

and

wget https://

It should show at least if there's a http server on that address.

Might return a bit more background info on what's wrong.

[bugfixer]

ah, great advice! when I try to wget the site i get this message:

Connecting to http://.. connected!

HTTP request sent, awaiting response...

End of file while parsing headers.

Giving up.

means the service vmware-webAccess is running but there is a problem with processing the index.html file. maybe some problem with tomcat??

ahh, man!! this is really giving me the creeps!

[VirtualKenneth]

Like I told you before, there must be a index.html in the directory and you noticed that you don't have it so I assume that's the problem then.

Are there other files in there?, other directory's?

If only the index.html is missing I could sent it to you (since you don't have a second ESX server to grab it from)

[Rumple]

can you do a vdf -h and paste between (code) and (/code) tags NOTE: use square brackets for the code tags

[bugfixer]

no no, I wrote: the index.html DOES exist! the whole folder is there, including the index.html. as the wget output shows, somehow the processing of index.html sucks! could be a webserver problem.

vdf -h shows the following:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda2 4.9G 1.4G 3.3G 29% /

/dev/sda1 99M 29M 66M 31% /boot

none 132M 0 132M 0% /dev/shm

/dev/sda6 2.0G 72M 1.8G 4% /var/log

/vmfs/devices 265G 0 265G 0% /vmfs/devices

/vmfs/volumes/45acce93-68ce83a1-9654-001422200478

129G 118G 10G 92% /vmfs/volumes/storage1

[VirtualKenneth]

My mistake, sorry for that.

What are the rights on the index.html?

Disk Space seems fine as well (I'm not sure if the service would start if disk space is unavailable)

[bugfixer]

no problem. the rights for index.html seem to be correct. users, groups and others have only read permission.

[bugfixer]

here again the wget output:

\--09:12:34-- http://192.168.144.77:80/

(try:17) => `index.html'

Connecting to 192.168.144.77:80... connected!

HTTP request sent, awaiting response...

End of file while parsing headers.

Retrying.

\--09:12:34-- http://192.168.144.77:80/

(try:18) => `index.html'

Connecting to 192.168.144.77:80... connected!

HTTP request sent, awaiting response...

End of file while parsing headers.

Retrying.

\--09:12:35-- http://192.168.144.77:80/

(try:19) => `index.html'

Connecting to 192.168.144.77:80... connected!

HTTP request sent, awaiting response...

End of file while parsing headers.

Retrying.

\--09:12:35-- http://192.168.144.77:80/

(try:20) => `index.html'

Connecting to 192.168.144.77:80... connected!

HTTP request sent, awaiting response...

End of file while parsing headers.

Giving up.

[VirtualKenneth]

Very odd, a complete other thing cause I've seen some strange things with that in certain circumstances, have you statically defined the network speed of your Service Console?

[VirtualKenneth]

Maybe the index.html if corrupted somehow, send me an e-mail if you want a "new" one, just to sort things out.

[bugfixer]

the service console is connected to a cisco cat. 2950 with full duplex fastethernet. the network configuration seems to be OK. establishing a connection to the service console via VI client works smoothly besides.

[VirtualKenneth]

I've seen situations in were certain things didn't work or didn't perform while pinging and connecting seems okay. So it's also statically defined on ESX?

[bugfixer]

check your email.

yes, it is statically defined!

[bugfixer]

its not the index.html file. i used a customized one but still nothing. i always get a blank site and wget fails. is there any way to make sure tomcat runs properly?? lol, if i try http://192.168.144.77/quickstart.pdf a download dialogue shows up! means that networking is not the matter. but what the??