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GBartsch
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New Twist on "Unsuccessful - Test connection failed: The vSphere agent does not exist or may not be running." when registering an endpoint

Anyone every see this?

We setup a HA vRA 7.3 installation.  So that means two vRA appliances, two Proxy Agents, two DEM workers, two DEM orchestrators, two IMS, two model manager webs, etc...

When the Proxy agent was configured in the vRA Configuration Wizard, one of two vCenter had a misspelled Endpoint Name.

To lay it out:

Proxy Agent #1 on Windows Server #1

vCenter:               vcenter1.ad.local

Endpoint Name:   vcenter1.ad.local

Proxy Agent #2 on Windows Server #2

vCenter:               vcenter1.ad.local

Endpoint Name:   vcetner1.ad.local  <----- TYPO! should have been "vcenter1.ad.local"

When you go to the vRA 7.3 default tenant -> Infrastructure -> Endpoints and attempt to add the vcenter1.ad.local Endpoint, you get:

"Unsuccessful - Test connection failed: The vSphere agent does not exist or may not be running."

IF, on the other hand, you enter the typo for the Endpoint name ("vcetner1.ad.local"), the test connection actually works!

Even after we uninstalled the Proxy Agent from BOTH servers and manually reinstalled them with the correct EndPoint names!!!

(So that means that uninstalling and reinstalling the Proxy Agents doesn't fix the issue...)

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GBartsch
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Background:

Installed vRA 7.3 in HA using 2 appliances and 2 x each IaaS server type (web, dem-o, dem-w, ims, proxy agent), which were all configured using the wizard. On the "Agents" page during the vRA 7 Configuration Wizard run, there were 2 vCenter Endpoints added - for a total of FOUR proxy agents. ONE of the agents for a second vCenter had a typo in the Endpoint Name field. This has lead to the database having a reference in dbo.Agents for the Endpoint name being the typo/misspelled Agent Endpoint name. Subsequent attempts to uninstall the second vCenter agent for the two Agent Proxy Servers had been totally unsuccessful; the database entry for the Endpoint name is not corrected with an uninstall / reinstall of the Proxy Agents for the affected vCenter

Solution (likely not supported by VMware - so open a support ticket and have GSS walk you through this):

- Uninstall the Proxy Agents for the specific vCenter Endpoint that has an issue

- SQL Management Studio, open the VRA database on your SQL server, and edit the first 200 rows of the dbo.Agents table

- Find the row that has your mispelled Proxy Agent Endpoint listed (be VERY meticulous in reviewing that row for the Endpoint you are looking for)

- Delete the row that contains the misspelled Endpoint Name

- Close the end table

- Reinstall your Proxy Agents being very careful not to make any typos

- Wait ~10 mintues

- Check the ado.Agents table to see that your agents now appear in the table correctly

- Logon to your vRA tenant, probably the Default Tenant

- Add the Endpoint that was giving you the error previously

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GBartsch
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As an update, I've reached back to the mothership, and it appears that if these conditions exist:

1) You install vRA using the reference HA (high availability) design

2) You run the vRA Configuration Wizard from the VAMI

3) In the "Agents" screen you enter your EndPoint Names, but you misspell only ONE of the TWO Proxy Agents ENDPOINT NAMES; one endpoint name is correct and one is not

4) When you check the VRA* SQL database table ado.Agents you see that the Proxy Agent in question shows the Endpoint Name as the misspelled name

5) When you attempt to add an Endpoint to vRA in the vRA console using the non-misspelled name you get "Test connection failed..."

6) When you use the misspelled Proxy Agent Endpoint Name the test connection works!

…then you have a problem that uninstalling the Proxy Agents from both IaaS Agent servers does not appear to fix.

I have not tried to edit the table on the database, as that would be a clearly unsupported by VMware.

However, there is an issue with borking the Endpoint Name for your Agents during the Configuration Wizard portion of the installation process. Specifically, when you only mess up one of the two HA proxy agents…

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GBartsch
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Background:

Installed vRA 7.3 in HA using 2 appliances and 2 x each IaaS server type (web, dem-o, dem-w, ims, proxy agent), which were all configured using the wizard. On the "Agents" page during the vRA 7 Configuration Wizard run, there were 2 vCenter Endpoints added - for a total of FOUR proxy agents. ONE of the agents for a second vCenter had a typo in the Endpoint Name field. This has lead to the database having a reference in dbo.Agents for the Endpoint name being the typo/misspelled Agent Endpoint name. Subsequent attempts to uninstall the second vCenter agent for the two Agent Proxy Servers had been totally unsuccessful; the database entry for the Endpoint name is not corrected with an uninstall / reinstall of the Proxy Agents for the affected vCenter

Solution (likely not supported by VMware - so open a support ticket and have GSS walk you through this):

- Uninstall the Proxy Agents for the specific vCenter Endpoint that has an issue

- SQL Management Studio, open the VRA database on your SQL server, and edit the first 200 rows of the dbo.Agents table

- Find the row that has your mispelled Proxy Agent Endpoint listed (be VERY meticulous in reviewing that row for the Endpoint you are looking for)

- Delete the row that contains the misspelled Endpoint Name

- Close the end table

- Reinstall your Proxy Agents being very careful not to make any typos

- Wait ~10 mintues

- Check the ado.Agents table to see that your agents now appear in the table correctly

- Logon to your vRA tenant, probably the Default Tenant

- Add the Endpoint that was giving you the error previously

josephpitkin
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FYI - This fix applied to vRA 7.4, as well. My environment is deployed utilizing the same reference architecture as described in the original post with minor changes (i.e. consolidated IaaS services and single vCenter endpoint).

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Irfy
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Hi,

You can actually edit the endpoint name of the vSphere Agent on the Windows Server as follows:

a) Open a command prompt as Administrator on the Windows Server where the Agent is installed.

b) Go to the directory where the Agent is installed, normally C:\Program Files (x86)\vCAC\Agents\<Agent Name Folder>

c) To see the current endpoint name type the following command:

          DynamicOps.Vrm.VRMencrypt.exe VRMAgent.exe.config get

d) And to set the new endpoint name type the following command:

          DynamicOps.Vrm.VRMencrypt.exe VRMAgent.exe.config set managementEndpointName <New name>.

          Note: < > are not required in the above command.

e) Restart the vSphere Agent service.