ESX Host disconnecting from VCenter

[ProPenguin]

Hi, just wondering if anyone else has had this issue.  I have a VMWare setup of VCenter and ESX Servers at 4.1.  Periodically one of my ESX hosts will just lose connection to the VCenter server and I have to re-add it.  The host still pings, doesnt lose actually network connectivity or I would get an alert.  I have been sifting through logs with no luck yet.  Any help would be appriciated.

Thank you

[Troy_Clavell]

this usually happens because of name resolution issues.  I would check both your vCenter and ESX Host to ensure proper name resolution is setup between the both.

On your ESX Hosts check /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/hosts

Also, check check to ensure you have your service console memory set the same as all the rest of the Hosts.

[ProPenguin]

Both files seem to be consistent with the other servers in the cluster.

[juchestyle]

We had this happening a lot when we were running unsupported rdms inside the service console.  Do you have any third party products installed?  If you do a clean install on the ESX does the problem go away?  If you rebuild vCenter, does it resolve the issue?

[Troy_Clavell]

you may also want to do a couple other things... Right Click on the ESX Host in question and "reconfigure for HA"  After that is done, restart the vpx agent and hostd

service vmware-vpxa restart

service mgmt-vmware restart

[ProPenguin]

No third party products installed, do not have the opportunity to rebuild the ESX host, and the same goes for the VCenter server.

[ProPenguin]

This allowed me to reconnect to the host properly.  Now if the issue is resolved, I am not so sure.  I will keep tabs on it and if I do not see any issues for a while I will update this discussion.  Also thank you.

[a_p_]

It would maybe worth to check the free disk space on your ESX host (df -h) to make sure it's not a full file system causing the issue.

André

[cblomart]

We had the same kind of problems... did you see any ssl issues on the host?

On heavely loaded esxs vCenter apparently doesn't arrive to renew vpxa password.

Kind of thing found in kb1022499

[bulletprooffool]

First thing you should always do when you can't connect to - or if  there is an issue with your connection between vCenter and ESXi \ ESX is  to:

1) check DNS configuration on the ESXi server and your DNS server  that ESX points to making sure you have the appropriate entries
2) Check host files etc in /etc/hosts, /etc/resolve.conf, /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/vmware/esx.conf files
2) try to disconnect and reconnect your ESXi host from your vCenter  inventory, this uninstalls and reinstalls the vCenter agent using FQDN  and then with IP address if FQDN didn't work
3) Try Restarting both the vCenter management agent on the ESX host and  the ESX host management agent. Learn how to do this here: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100349...
4) If the above didn't do anything for you, it could be lost  connectivity to a LUN, which can cause problems with ESX (less now than  earlier versions ESX 2.x), connect to ESXi host directly with VI Client  and perform a rescan of your storage adaptors and LUNs.

From: http://www.get-virtual.info/2011/01/26/connection-issues-to-esx-host-esx-host-not-responding/

[logiboy123]

How is your management networking and failover configured?

[nava_thulasi39]

The same happened once.

The simple thing I forget to check about the Windows Os (VCenter) firewall was blocking the ping to the ESX Server

[ProPenguin]

So far after resetting the agents I have not had any issues.  Apperently that is all they needed. 

[ProPenguin]

Troy if you repost your fix I will mark it correct, I can't remark your other post.  And thank you so much.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

good stuff!  Glad to see you go it resolved