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stony007_de
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

After KB-1008130 Patch losing Heatbeat after snapshot

Hi Guys,

On friday i was installing the I/O Error Fix Patch " KB-1008130. The install was fine and without problems. Now i got the following problem.

If i start a Backup via vcb, the VMWareTools runs and the VMWare-"Tools Status=ToolsOk".

The snapshot is done and the VMwareTools get the state "Not running"

so the backup cannot work successfull! If i start the vmware tools manually the same effect appears.

any ideas?

stony007_de

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Neil_C
Contributor
Contributor

Does anyone know how to do this:

" service mgmt-vmware restart"

in ESX3i ?

UPDATE: Do you think this will do?

/etc/init.d/hostd restart

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donnieq
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

When using ESXi 3.5, there are three ways (that I know of) to restart the management agents:

1.) Console GUI (yellow/gray screen): Press F2 and login, select "restart management agents"

2.) Console CLI (*unsupported*): Press ALT+F1 to and type "unsupported", login, and type "services.sh restart"

3.) VMwre PowerShell VI Toolkit: type "Get-VMHost YOURSERVER | Get-VMHostService | Where {$_.key -eq "vmware-vpxa"} | Restart-VMHostService"

Don Q.

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dconvery
Champion
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KB posted on 19th March 2009 -> http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008709

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

http://www.dailyhypervisor.com

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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VMegalodon
Contributor
Contributor

i have added the following line to /etc/crontab and restarted the cron services (/etc/init.d/crond restart)

00 7 * * * root service mgmt-vmware restart

But is does not work on my ESX Hostst, what am i doing wrong? Anyone?

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Neil_C
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Don Q.

I think we'll try and implement the third option or maybe change our VCB script to use the UUID as mentioned in the KB article.

I tried the second option but it seems to restart a lot more than just the mgmt services.

Cheers,

Neil.

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dconvery
Champion
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Neil -

The VMware Tools will still go offline when you make the snapshot. Using UUID or MoRef will just allow you to find the VM without tools running. You still have the heartbeat issue.

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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Neil_C
Contributor
Contributor

Yep, thanks for that reminder. I think we're going to use a Windows powershell solution to restart the vmtools but it would be nice if the VCB wasn't reliant on the tools working.

Thanks,

Neil.

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tdorto
Contributor
Contributor

We have the same problem in our environment after applying the January ESX Patches. VMWare recognizes this as a problem and said a patch should be released by early April. We have come up with 3 workarounds when the status changes to Not Responding from VCenter after running VCB.

1. restart mgmt-vmware service on every host via a script (Works, but not the greatest)

2. from a console session with VCenter simply login to the guest and tools status returns to OK (Simple fix if you don't have a lot of VM's)

3. migrate your VM's from one host to another host (The heartbeat must be reinitiated because this will also change the status).

If you work with the third option you can use VI Tools + Powershell to write a script that will check for the status of tools on your guests and then trigger a migration if status is returned as Not Responding.

Hopefully we will see the vmware patch soon.

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dconvery
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I forgot to mention that I posted some scripts to restart the tools service.

http://www.dailyhypervisor.com/2009/03/25/script-restarting-vmware-tools-remotely/

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

http://www.dailyhypervisor.com

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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VMegalodon
Contributor
Contributor

VMWare released ESX 3.5 Update 4 yesterday.

Ik will install today en let you all know if it fixes "our" problem

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bmarcum
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks VMegalodon. Looking forward to your findings.

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VMegalodon
Contributor
Contributor

Yep, it looks good. Tools status OK.

I am running VC 2.5 Update 3 with ESX 3.5 Update 4.

M.

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dconvery
Champion
Champion

Thanks for the update!

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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mlammerts
Contributor
Contributor

Today installed U4 at some ESX hosts, problem looks for now fixed.

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dconvery
Champion
Champion

Did you upgrade VMware Tools as well or was the ESX upgrade enough?

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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mlammerts
Contributor
Contributor

Only update some 6 ESX hosts with U4. Not all the ESX hosts inside the cluster are upgraded. (the others will be update in the next day's).

The VMware tools are for now not updated (this is for the post actions...).

For now no issues with VCB and the VMware Tools on the update ESX hosts.

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dconvery
Champion
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Thanks

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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nics30
Contributor
Contributor

turkina wrote:

00 8 * * * root service mgmt-vmware restart

TO put this in a cronjob you are better off doing:

crontab -e (as root user)

This was you do not need to restart the cron daemon. Make sure you can use vi editor though before you do this command as you add the line in with the vi editor.

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