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vmman34
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VSCA running but can't connect to vCenter

Hi,

I started my host today and the VCSA booted up as what appeared to be normal and it's sitting on the standard how to login and support bundle dcui page.

But i'm getting a page cannot be displayed when I attempt to to browse to it by its IP address and I can't get to to the admin section either.

To make matters worse I don't have a backup so I can't do a restore.

The networking appears to be ok and it is responding to pings.

Any ideas?

Thanks

8 Replies
vXav
Expert
Expert

Can you reach the IP on port 443 ?

You can check this in powershell "Test-NetConnection x.x.x.x -port 443".

The cmdlet might not be available if you have an older powershell, then here.

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vmman34
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi vXav

I have just checked it using that Powershell script and it is not not responding to anything on port 80 or 443.

I have also just noticed that that disk that is it running on is showing as 100% full.

But I have run into another problem when try to add the extent to the disk.

I expanded the disk by another 40GB and then tried to increase the capacity on the host by selecting to use an existing extent.

And I got this error

Expand Vmfs Datastore  

Key  :  haTask-ha-host-vim.host.DatastoreSystem.expandVmfsDatastore-2484

Description : Expand the capacity of a VMFS datastore extent

State Failed   - Cannot change the host configuration.  

Thanks

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vijayrana968
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

How about SSH access, are you able to access it on port 22 via SSH client !

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anvanster
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

most likely the problem is in 100% disk consumption.

You need to free up some space on your VCSA to allow web services to start.

Login to VCSA over SSH or Alt+F1 console.

Run "df -h" to see the disk space usage, most likely you'll see no space available on the disks.

Run a command to sort files by size on your system: "du -a /var | sort -n -r | head -n 10"

Make note of the largest log files and delete them.

Reboot your VCSA to complete the process.

vXav
Expert
Expert

Wait I'm confused. Are you talking about the virtual disk of the VCSA that is using 100% or are you talking about the datastore.

If your datastore is 100% and the VM disks are thin provisioned, you will to free up space/expand the datastore are move the VM to another datastore with more space.

If the VM disk is showing 100% usage, then you should follow what anvanstersuggested before increasing the disk size.

As for the error, there is this thread.

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vmman34
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

anvanster

Hi,

I have tried your method in the shell and this is what I got.

The problem is with the first disk and I can tell by quickly looking at it that the VCSA's swap file is consuming 10GB of space every time the VM is switched on.

So I expanded the disk to 80GB, but I am unable to add the extra free space to the disk in the ESXi GUI. It is giving me an error, and from what I have read about the GUI disk utilities they are absolutely terrible and prone to bugs.

That is why some people have recommended follow this ESXiCLi article to grow the local datastore VMware Knowledge Base 

shell1.jpg

What do you suggest?

Thanks

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vmman34
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

vXav

Hi,

Please see my post below.

It is the local datastore that has run out of space. Probably because of the growth of the VCSA, i.e the swap file is 10GB and that is consuming a large amount of space.


The disk is thin provisioned and I have expanded it to 80GB. But the GUI tools on the host are useless and they will not let me add the extra space to the disk without throwing an error

It looks like the only way of adding the extra space to the disk is by using the command line, like the user has to do in the thread you pointed out. I had been reading that prior to your post but I really don't want to be going down that route for what should be a simple task.

I will know next time to either

Create a disk with a large VMFS volume. 100GB.

Put the VCSA on a separate disk.

Thanks

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vmman34
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi all,

I managed to resolve it and my VCSA is responding again and I can access my vCenter!!!


The problem was that the VCSA had consumed all of the disk space on the hosts local datastore so I had to increase the datastore size and grow the VMFS.

But I was not able to do that through the ESXi hosts GUI because of a flaw in the product. Therefore I had to follow this guide VMware Knowledge Base  and do it manually through the ESXi shell.

I cant believe that VMWare have not addressed this issue.

Thanks

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