VMotion via Console

[espi3030]

Does anybody out there know how I can vmotion/migrate/move a vm from one host (that is corrupt) to another host? The corrupt host is not visible in the VIC, but I can still SSH into the corrupt host. The VM's are in a Production environment and need to stay operational. Thank you.

[mcowger]

Cant be done.

The vmotion process is arbitrated by VirtualCenter, so if VC thinks its down or doesn't exist, you aren't going to be able to move it.

--Matt

[mittim12]

I guess since you can't VMotion without Virtual Center the best bet would be to fix the corrupt host? What symptoms is the corrupt host showing? I had a situation where one of my host in a cluster went into a not responding state. I could still SSH into the host and all the VM's were up and running so the host was functional just not able to be managed through VC. A quick reset of the vmware management service corrected the issue and everything was back to normal.

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[espi3030]

Initially the host just showed dissconnected. And reconnecting produced an error stating that the server either does not exist, there is a software problem or a networking problem. I tried to restart the VC services, it did not help. Then I removed the host hoping that readding it would help, nope!

[mittim12]

What version of VC are you using and what version of ESX is the host?

[espi3030]

The VC is 2.0.2 and ESX is 3.0.2 (52542)

[christianZ]

For better understanding check his other thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/137646?tstart=0

[jgalexan]

Slow down, don't panic, and submit a request to support for some help. There are lots of knowlegable people on this forum, but sometimes we overlook insignificant items that could explain a lot about what is going on. Don't assume that the host is corrupt. you might still be able to save it.

[mittim12]

After reviewing the other thread and seeing the changes that have already been made I must agree with the call support recommendation. At this point your VM's are up and running so you are not experiencing any downtime (which is a great thing). Open a ticket with support and work through the issue with them.

[espi3030]

I have a question, if the guest VM's running on this corrupt ESX host are stored on SAN shouldn't I be ok shutting the VM's down and re-installing ESX? Would that harm my VM's on SAN?

[mittim12]

You can reinstall ESX without harming the VMFS partition but I would be very careful as you can easily destroy the LUN and then you are forced to restore from backups, if you have any. I would even go as far as disconnecting the HBAs so that the server was no longer able to see the LUN, thus negating the chance of accidently reformatting the LUN that has the VM's on it. Did support give you any useful information?

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[espi3030]

As a best practice I always remove any FC connections and additional ethernet connections. All this started because my two ESX hosts can't see the shared LUN that has been masked to both of them. I can rescan the storage adapters, and refresh storage but I cannot see them.