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mysza78
Contributor
Contributor

Problem connecting to VirtualCenter after updating

Hello,

Until yesterday, I had 3 3.0.2 ESX Servers in my environment along wiht 2.0 Virtual Center and 2.0 VI Client. I had to upgrade the environment so I started with 1 server and upgaraded it to 3.5 I had no problems whatsoever during the upgrade. However, my VI Client while was connected to Virtual Center could not establish connection with that upgraded server anymore. I even tried to connect directly to that server but no luck. So, I updated VI CLient to 2.5 That helped connecting directly to the ESX Server but not trough VirtualCenter. Next, I upgraded Virtual Center as well. Am able to connect to all the servers directly but can't connect to Virtual Center at all Smiley Sad I remember that during initial installation non standard ports were used. To connect to the VirtualCenter from the client on the same machine I was just putting localhost:8889 and all was fine. Now it doesn't work. I wonder if the ports got changed or what the problem may be. I wasn't able to find a configuration file to verify. Does anyone know where I can find them or has any other ideas what may be wrong? I would appreciate any help as I am fairly new to vmware stuff.

Thanks in advance!

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

seems you did the upgrade a little backwards. VCMS should always be upgraded before your hosts. Do you use a seperate DB instance for VC? If so, what version? If 2005 did you change your OBBC driver to SQL Native? You may also want to look at this KB

Can you log directly into your VCMS Host system and see if the Virtual Center service is running, as well as test your ODBC connections?

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mysza78
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Troy, thanks for your reply.

I can see VirtualCenter Server running among my processes (view attached screenshot). I am unable connect to VirtualCenter by going to http://localhost on the box or from outside using ip address. I believe it's not the default port though so I would have to specify that and I don't know what to use.

During an upgrade I saw the message that the new VirtualCenter doesn't support MSDE anymore so it installed SQL Server 2.5. I am not sure if it migrated all the required date to the new instance or not. How can I verify that it's up and running? Are there certain steps I should be taking to get the VirtualCenter 2.5 up and running?

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Troy_Clavell
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Immortal

well you won't be able to connect through the web because the web service is not running, plus you need https://localhost/ui/.

Also, when you installed your VCMS did you get a client? If not go to https://localhost/ and download and install it.

If you created a new DB, then yes all your information will be gone. If you have shared datastores, you will be able to get your VM's back by browsing the datastores and adding them back to inventory.

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mysza78
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I started that service (it must have been running but not showing it since I had to stop it first to start it again). Anyway, that didn't help. https://localhost/ui is not found and https://localhost is not working b/c that port is taken by another service (that's currently down). Please view attached screenshots.

I don't recall the screen asking me to merge db so I probably picked the default way. In any case, should I just try to uninstall VirtualCenter all together and reinstall it from scratch? Those vm's are running on hosts so I should be able to add them later, right? How does it all work? I am confused.

Thanks for all your help.

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mysza78
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I tried to search for *.mdf files that perhaps could be migrated between databases. Found bunch of stuff so maybe there is a hope to fix this mess before I uninstall it all together. Does anyone know how to migrate this data in between old database and the new one? I am clueless.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

I would advise against installing anyting other than your VCMS instance. So if you have installed it on a host system that is running other stuff, you should find another host system that you can install your VCMS instance on, which can be a VM.

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mysza78
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I will try to look around but I am afraid that until I get new hardware and licenses, I will have to work with that box. Previous version of VC worked just fine so I don't see why the updated version wouldn't work.

What I would really like is to find out if there is a config file that would show me all the ports for VirtualCenter?

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Troy_Clavell
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mysza78
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the info! I wish I knew it earlier! Ok, I am going to check other Windows boxes in our environment and see if I can find one that suits our needs.

I will post my progress here later.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
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FYI... you don't need hardware to install Virtual Center. If you haveESX on-line you can run your VCMS inside a VM and it's fully supported

mysza78
Contributor
Contributor

That's not an option for us. First of all, our ESX Servers go down more often than other servers plus they are so full now, I cannot add another vm. The ones we currently have use port 80 and more likely 443 as well.

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mysza78
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Contributor

Found a work around.

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