Can't log in after changing IP on vCenter Server

[Wertyx]

Hello!

I have a cluster based on VMware vSphere 5.5. I have vCenter Server running on a Windows Server 2012 VM.

The issue: I need to change ip-address of my vCenter server and change vlan assigned to it.

The VM has one virtual NIC with ip 10.20.49.10, for example. I created one more NIC when was changing IP on ESXi hosts (the new one is 10.20.43.10). With ESXi everything is fine, they correctly reconnected to Vcenter but when I change IP on vCenter I cannot log in to it using vSphere Client(message: Cannot complete login due to incorrect login or password).

It happens when I disable interface with IP 10.20.49.10. When I connect using vSphere Web Client and try to log in I see message: " https://10.20.49.10:7444/sts/STSService/vsphere.local. The server might have failed to respond or responded in an unexpected way".

When this interface is up I can connect to vCenter using both IP-addresses, everything is fine. Also if I disconnect NIC with ip 10.20.49.10 from the VM and reboot Vcenter services "VMware VirtualCenter Server" and "VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices" fail to start. If I reconnect the NIC with 10.20.49.10, the services start again and I can connect both IP: 10.20.49.10 and 10.20.43.10 and log in.

Does anybody have an idea what's wrong? How can I fix the problem ?

Thank you in advance!

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

You likely can't fix the problem. In cases where vCenter has been installed using the IP address and not the fully-qualified host name, you cannot change its IP address. Doing so will, as you have discovered, break vCenter. Your best bet at this point is to deploy the vCSA on version 6.0 or higher and migrate your hosts over to it, or revert your vCenter if you have a snapshot or backup. vSphere 5.5 is EOGS in September of 2018, so now might seem like a good time to move away from it.

[Wertyx]

daphnissov​, thank you!

But can I just reinstall vCenter and set the IP I need during installation ? If I decide to reinstall the vCenter what should I do with licence? 

I have no VMware subscriptions, so I can't migrate to vCSA 6.x, as far as I know.

[RajeevVCP4]

You can try these steps

1.Remove old IP from registry (windows vc/vm) you need to search 3-4 times in regedit.

2 Create forward and reverse lookup zone in DNS with new IP

3 restart DNS service

4.Flush DNS and register on VC/VM

5. Reboot VC and try to logon.

[Wolken]

I had such cases several times and each time should reinstall vCenter from scratch.

[Wertyx]

Thank you!

I deployed VCSA and it solved the problem.