Hosts won't stay connected, new install

[DustinTrap]

Yesterday I took a pair of ESXi hosts to our datacenter along with a new Cisco RVS4000 router. While I was there for a couple of hours everything seemed to work fine but this morning the hosts are both showing disconnected in vCenter. I can connect directly to both of them using vSphere. We've got one vm installed right now, Server 2008 r2, which is running the vCenter we're having problems connecting to. With the exception of the router, this is the exact setup that's been running in my home lab for the last two weeks without issue. Some time in Google turned up the following link which hasn't helped at all.

Diagnosing an ESX or ESXi host that is Disconnected or Not Responding in vCenter Server

After following the above link, I corrected a missing vCenter Server IP and rebooted one of the hosts. That didn't help at all. Also I have deleted the entire datacenter from vCenter and recreated it successfully. However, this also didn't correct the issue.

I suspected the router might be a little too aggressive in monitoring internal security but a check of it's logs didn't reveal any internal issues. I have tested with IPS disabled and enabled which had no effect.

I'm a little lost, any tips would be appreciated!

[chriswahl]

Make sure the vpxa (vCenter Agent) service is running on the hosts, and that it is allowed by the host firewall. Then check to make sure it is reachable by vCenter (port 902 UDP). If using a host profile check to make sure it is not disabling this service / firewall exception.

Cheers. :smileycool:

[DustinTrap]

Chris,

thanks for the tips. I forgot to mention this in my first post, but I had checked port 902 using telnet and all was accessible. Your comments on the firewall got me thinking though and when I went to check it discovered the vCenter server thought it was on a public vs. private network. Changing it to the 'work' preset immediately restored functionality.

Thanks for helping me find it.