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adamhodgkins
Contributor
Contributor

Virtual Centre problem

Hi,

I have 2x ESX 3i servers which are up and fine. I have installed Virtual Centre and its other products, Infrastructure Client and Converter on a Server 2003 box but I can't load Virtual Centre. The only icons I have are Infrastructure Client and Converter. I can connect to both host servers through Infrastructure, but I thought that With Virtual Centre, all hosts could be managed from one location? I'm pretty sure it is installed because in Add/Remove programs it shows up, and there is also a Virtual Centre service which is started.

When connected to either host in Infrastructure and clicking on the 'Summary' tab there is an option to 'Manage this host through VMWare Virtual Centre'. Clicking on this just opens a web page and prompts me to download the version of Infrastructure that I already have?

I have a license server set up with licenses installed, and when installing Infrastructure I pointed it to the license server and it went through fine.

As you can tell, I am new to this so any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you!

Adam

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

you need to point your client to the hostname or IP of the Host Server that you installed vCenter on. If it's in a domain you need to login using your AD credentials. Once in, you can start setting up your vCenter Server.

This guide below may help as well

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_admin_guide.pdf

taken from

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vi_pages/vi_pubs_35u2_3i_e.html

if you feel this or any other answer was useful please mark it as "correct" or "helpful"

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adamhodgkins
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, thanks for the rapid response! I have had a look through the Administration Guide, found the parts about adding hosts, but I don't have the options mentioned available. Also in the diagrams, there are a lot more buttons in the console than I have. I have attached a screen shot of my system.

Thanks

Adam

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adamhodgkins
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, thanks for the quick response!!

I have looked through the admin guide and read the part about adding hosts, but I don't have any of the options described available to me. Also, in their diagrams there are quite a few buttons on the main menu bar, and I only have 'Inventory' and 'Administration' there. Clicking on the Administration button just takes me to the screen to amend roles.

Thank you

Adam

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

you are connected to the ESX host, not vCenter. Wherever you installed vCenter, go to that server, there should be a VIC, launch it, point to local host or 127.0.0.1 and log in with AD permissions. By default when you install vCenter the local adminstrators group of the HOST OS gets added to the Adminstrator Role in vCenter.

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adamhodgkins
Contributor
Contributor

I have just tried this, and I get the following error message:

VMware infrastructure Client could not establish the initial connection with the server "localhost"

Details: A communication error occurred while sending data to the server.

I have also tried connecting with 127.0.0.1. When logging on I used the domain admin credentials, and tried it in domain\administrator, and just administrator formats.

Adam

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

your Virtual Center Server Service is set to automatic and started correct?

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adamhodgkins
Contributor
Contributor

Yes, I've just checked and all VMWare services are set to automatic, and are started.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

reboot your vCenter Server

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adamhodgkins
Contributor
Contributor

I've just rebooted it, checked that all services are running then tried to log on again but got the same error as last time.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

during the install of your vCenter Server you used all the defaults? You can telnet on port 443 to your vCenter Hosts OS? If all else fails, I would do an uninstall of the vCenter Server, and start again.

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adamhodgkins
Contributor
Contributor

I can telnet to the server on 443. I used all defaults during installation apart from the http and https web ports as the ports it suggested are already allocated. For this I picked random ports in the given range.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

unless anyone else has any suggestions, my next steps would be to open an SR. VMware can WebEX into your enviornment.

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