vsphere replication upgrade 5.5 to 5.8 Server Enabled (Not accessible)

[smitchuson]

I was doing a vsphere replication upgrade today to move from 5.5 to 5.8 and the upgrade part seemed to go fine.  After rebooting the appliance however my vcenter is reporting that the server is not accessible.  Have I done something wrong? 

I was following the steps laid out here. VMware vSphere Replication 5.8 Documentation Center

I searched a bit but the only solutions I found were to make sure and power off the appliance and turn it back on as opposed to just rebooting it as a fix but that hasn't seemed to help in my case.

Thanks,

[smitchuson]

Just finished speaking with support.  After some lengthy tries to get it going they said my best bet was to just redeploy since I didn't have a massive set of replications going.

[mmarinov]

Hi,

Showing that the VR is enabled means VR registered in VC's ExtensionManager correctly.

However, the VR UI is not able to communicate with the VR management server.

Can you check if:

- https://vr_management_server_ip:5480 is operational and you are able to log in

- If yes, please restart the service from the this VAMI UI

- If no, check please if the appliance is correctly accessible through the network

- If no, you will need to open an SR and provide the logs from the appliance

Regards,

--Martin

[smitchuson]

Everything that you asked seemed to be fine except.  If I try to restart the service it does not stay running for very long.

If I use the "Save and Restart Service" button I get an error "unable to obtain ssl certificate"  I showed this to the vmware tech that was helping me and he was unsure why I was getting it.  He recommended the solution of just redeploying the appliance and starting over.

I have started that process but if I deploy a fresh 5.8 appliance I run into the same problems as my upgraded one.  I am now going to try to deploy a fresh 5.5 appliance and see if there is any change.

I feel as though this might have something to do with my older (but still valid) certs in vcenter but the tech on the phone said that it was more than likely not the case.

I will keep updating this thread just to have a document trail of what I've tried in case anyone else sees information that could help them.

[Biliana]

Have you upgraded the vCenter Server to 5.8 ? If so, it may have changed its certificate and VR appliance needs to be powered off and then powered on in order to get the new certificate. See vSphere Replication is Inaccessible After Changing vCenter Server Certificate in the admin guide.

[smitchuson]

No the only part I upgraded was vSphere Replication.  and vCenter does not need to be updated to use vSphere Replication 5.8

Steps so far tried:

Environment is vSphere vCenter 5.5 was running vSphere Replication 5.5 with no problems and no SRM installed.

Downloaded 5.8 update iso because of shellshock issues.

Loaded the iso and updated following the steps as outlined in vmware documentation with no errors. 

Rebooted device to find "enabled (not accessible)"

First solution to try was shutting down and restarting appliance (multiple ways: through thick client, through own device, through web client).

At this point support contacted me and checked my logs and saw error messages when trying to click "unregister from vcenter" and "save and restart service"

VRM service would start but only for a few seconds and then go back to stop.

Support suggested unregistering appliance (remove extension) and deleting the appliance and trying from scratch.

I tried this first with just the 5.8 appliance as a fresh install and still recieved the error messages as though it had been attached in the past even though all previous information about that vm had been removed (except dns entries)

I tried again with a fresh 5.5 appliance to see if there was just an issue with my vCenter install and vSphere Replication 5.8.  Still recieved the errors.

Neither fresh install was able to create the extenstion that attaches to vCenter for vSphere Replication.

I've updated my SR with all of this information as well and i'm waiting to hear back what they think I should do.

I'm wondering if there is something still wandering around in my vmware databases that has information about the vSphere replication server.

[diegoazevedo]

I had same issue today with one of three upgrades I was carrying out. The other 2 went fine!

It turns out 5.8 Replication appliance was trying to contact vCenter on port TCP443, and that was being blocked on the firewall. Appliance and vCenter are configured on different subnets.

All was working fine with version 5.5 and firewall was allowing port TCP80 only until this point.

Once traffic was allowed on the firewall, all I had to do was connect to the appliance web interface and hit "Save and Restart Service". I then closed and reopened vSphere Web client (cleared browser/flash cache) and it was all green again.

All the VMs configured for replication did go through a Full Sync though 😞

[smitchuson]

My appliance and vcenter are on the same subnet so that shouldn't be an issue. 

Last night VMware support had me restart my vCenter services to see if that helped clear the problem.  It created another issue where I can't go to Client Plug-in's through the web interface anymore without receiving an error 1009.  This is supposedly fixed in 5.5 update 2 but at this point I don't want to update anything else until I find out what problem I'm running into with vSphere Replication.

[smitchuson · Accepted solution]

In case anyone is curious the solution that did end up fixing it was the certificate as I feared.  So after getting all of that ironed out, which was another two days of work because of how long I'd have this vcenter install going.  Everything was fixed after replacing my old self signed cert with a new one.

[swithc82mac]

Hi I am experiencing the same issue.

I am guessing it was the vCenter cert that you had to replace?

I have tried replacing the vSphere Replication cert and running through the following kb to no avail.

VMware KB: Registering VMware vSphere Replication (VR) to vCenter Server fails with the error: Unabl...

[smitchuson]

Yes I had to replace the cert specifically for the vSphere vCenter server, it was a massive headache as well since it hadn't been replaced since we had rolled out the system when we were still running the first version of vCenter.  I couldn't use any of the automated tools.

If you can use those tools, its much easier.

[swithc82mac]

Thought as much. Thanks for the reply looks like I have to do the same.