ESXi 5.0 Cannot Join vCenter, vpxa rogue folder cannot be removed

[kasaj]

Hello,

we have an ESXi 5.0 that cannot be joined to vCenter 5.1

It fails with timed out waiting for vpxa to start.

the problem seems coming from:

/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpx # ls -lah

drwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          512 Mar  8 12:40 .

-r-xr-xr-x    1 root     root        29.7k Aug 19  2011 .#vpxResultFilter.xml

drwxrwxrwx    1 root     root          512 May 10  2012 ..

/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpx # rm -rf .\#vpxResultFilter.xml

rm: cannot remove '.#vpxResultFilter.xml': Operation not permitted

this file cannot be deleted.

The host has failed to join vCenter previously and the vpxa could not be uninstalled nor installed.

please you help

thank

[vNEX]

Hello kasaj,

please follow articles below:

VMware KB: Reinstalling the vpxa or aam agent without losing the host record from the vCenter Server...

VMware KB: Verifying and reinstalling the correct version of the VMware vCenter Server agents

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Regards,

P.

[kasaj]

Hello vNEX,

Thank you for the reply,

I have already tried everything I could google.

vpxa has already been uninstalled, or not properly installed. /opt/vmware has only vpxa folder, which has only vpx folder which in turn has only the .#vpxResultFilter.xml file, see details below

Now the problem, I think, is the fact that the file cannot be deleted. Hence folder structure cannot be deleted and ESXi consideres vpxa installed but not working.

I have tried a lot of commands to delete from ssh, but no success.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[vNEX]

OK first

- try to delete the file with this command:

/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpx # rm -rf vpxResultFilter.xml

- try to use touch command on vpxResultFilter.xml... if returns some error post it.

Using # vmkvsitools lsof | grep vpxResultFilter.xml try to identify owner process

- put host into Maintenance Mode to stop all monitoring activity, reboot it and again try to delete the file

If nothing above resolves your issue perform filesystem check with this command:

dosfsck -a -w /dev/disks/device_name

Regards,

P.

[warring]

Easiest way would be to just rebuild the host, re-install ESXi

[vNEX]

Hello Kasaj,

any updates on this issue?

Thanks,

P.

[kasaj]

Hi all,

Nothing worked.

Will plan migration of VMs and rebuild the host.

Thanks

[kasaj · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

I managed to solve the problem.

It was so simple:

From the logs, I noticed that: When trying to join the host to vCenter, it queried for the file vpxResultFilter.xml, and could not find it. (the file had somehow been renamed to .#vpxResultFilter.xml)

I copied .#vpxResultFilter.xml to vpxResultFilter.xml as below, and voila, it worked.

/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpx # ls -l -a

drwxrwxrwx    1 root     root                512 Aug  1 13:29 .

-r-xr-xr-x    1 root     root              30384 Aug 19  2011 .#vpxResultFilter.xml

drwxrwxrwx    1 root     root                512 May 10  2012 ..

-r-xr-xr-x    1 root     root              30384 Aug  1 13:29 vpxResultFilter.xml

Hope this helps anyone else.

Thanks all.