Manual removal of host from Virtual Centre

[goughandrew]

Hi there, we recently installed a demo copy of virtual centre to help us move some VM's from one ESX server to another. For various reasons, including not having enough time to familiarise, we couldn't get the VC to connect correctly, and it would never allow us to connect to it to manage. We now need to remove the management connection to a ESX 3.5 host, but cannot.

I followed a post to remove VMware-vpxa-2.5.0-119598, which was successfull, but still when i open a client session to my host, it tells me it's being managed by a Virtual Centre. Can anyone tell me how to manually remove the VC client, preferably without downing the server?

We have already removed the Virtual Centre software btw

Thanks

[christianZ]

Is your vpxa still running? "service vmware-vpxa status"

[goughandrew]

'service vmware-vpxa status' brings up the message that its an unrecognised service, so i'm guessing not! :smileyblush:

[NTurnbull]

Hi, it could be caused by the ESX host thinking is on VC based licensing not host based. If you connect to your host and go to the Configuration tab for it and choose Licensed Features, does it show as VC or Host based? You can change it by clicking edit.

Thanks,

Neil

[christianZ · Accepted solution]

LIcence config checking as mentioned above and then

restart of mgmt-vmware "service mgmt-vmware restart"

[goughandrew]

Just checked, and it's definitely set to a host based license. I guess there must be a way to do this, otherwise how would you connect to a new VC if your old hardware died?

[goughandrew]

Can you advise the implications on a live system of a restart of mgmt-vmware?

Thanks!

[christianZ]

They are Esx management services (hostd), e.g. for vi client access or http access. so you can restart it on live system w/o problems.

[goughandrew]

I restarted successfully, but although I can ssh on fine, VI client access is no longer working 'server took too long to respond'. Checked that the service mgmt-vmware is running, which comes up as ok ... any thoughts!

[goughandrew]

As an update to the case as i can no longer connect to my ESX server using VI client, below is the information from my VI client logs:

2008-11-20 13:32:04.716 Log for VI Client Launcher, pid=5668, version=2.5.0, build=build-64192, option=release

2008-11-20 13:32:40.867 Error retrieving clients.xml

System.Net.WebException: The operation has timed out

at VpxClient.Login.LoginProcess.DownloadClientXML(Boolean silent)

at VpxClient.Login.LoginProcess.<OnConnect>b__4(Object obj)

[goughandrew]

I restarted the service again (mgmt-vmware), and this time it eventually allowed me to reconnect via VI (phew!), also it no longer states that it's being managed by the VC so it appears to be fixed! Thanks for all the input everyone

Andy

[christianZ]

Sorry, I see your problem first now - happy you could solve it.

Reg

Christian