Error Connecting to Host in VC

[VMdawg]

I am getting an intermittent error when I click the console tab on a host in virtual center:

Error connecting: Cannot connect to host : A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond-Do you want to try again?

Has anyone seen this and/or know of the cause/fix?

[cheeko]

restart the mgmt daemon on the ESX host console and try again:

service mgmt-vmware restart

[VMdawg]

Have you experienced this same issue or are you just throwing out ideas?

[VMKR9]

I think I have seen this before and it was a network routing issue, do a tracert on it and compare to one of your working hosts...

[cheeko]

I experienced the same issue before. Beside that it doesn't hurt to restart this service, so imho it should be one of the first things to try if you can connect directly to the host.

[masaki]

Did you try both with ip address and server name?

as said:

tracert ipaddress

check name's resolution

check routing (do you use multiple adapters?)

[mpowis · Accepted solution]

I just had the same problem.

The SC Port on one of the ESX servers didn't have a default gateway and no matter what I did it wouldn't keep one either.

In the end I had to recreate the SC port at which time it kept all the settings and the Console started to work

[VMdawg]

What does "SC" stand for...Service Console?

[mpowis]

Sorry, Yes. Too much typing this evening and got lazy!

[VMdawg]

What's the best way to check that, through the config tab on the host in VC, or directly from root?

[mpowis]

I used the Client. Server, Config Tab, Networking and Properties of your vSwitch which has the SC. You should then be able to edit the SC port itself.

[masaki]

from root session type:

esxcfg-vswif -l

gives you sc parameters

esxcfg-vswitch -l

gives you vswitch details (port groups, and pnic)

[pnagwekar]

Subnet Mask on service console was set incorrectly in my case. It started working as soon as I fixed it.

To change the network parameter, please open the following file and restart network service

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-vswif0

service network restart

-Parag

[azn2kew]

I go the same problem as described below but no fix anyone has any ideas. My traceroute ouput:

C:\>tracert srvesx02

Tracing route to srvesx02

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms ltm31.domain.com
2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms lts09-pt-ch4.domain.com

3 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms lts01.domain.com \[170.186.131.1]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 ^C
C:\>

service mgmt-vmware restart doesn't harm anything? This is production clusters. Will the VMs will be vmotion and bring it back live seamlessly?

[dhilipanand]

There is a bug in 3.x and it is resolved in 3.5 with proper error message

Bug in 3.x:

If there is a Virtual Instance running in ESX Server, from the virtual instance if you try to connect the same esx through VI Client, you will get this error and also the virtual instance network connection will go down.

Solution:

Avoid connecting to ESX Server through the virtual instance which is running on same ESX Server

[mo21384]

Even I had the same issue, added the Gateway to service console. found working fine. Thanks mpowis

[alansyu]

I'm having the same issue as initially reported. However I can't remotely access the ESX server w/ the entry GATEWAYDEV=vswif0 active. I need to comment it out before I can access the ESX server...anyone seen that?

[vishuadapa]

Adding default gateway info to the service console fixed my issue.

[GarretGillespie]

We switched to a new firewall and lost console connectivity. Restarting the daemon worked for me. I SSHed into both my hosts and ran "service mgmt-vmware restart" then checked the consoles again and they are up and running. Thanks for the help.