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mclark
Expert
Expert

vCOPS 5 problem with datastores

I installed vCenter Ops Standard 5 and got it up and running. I have several red alerts in the dashboard, but the root cause of them all seems to be this one:

TRIGGER: System Degradation

RESOURCE: vCenter Server

DETAILS: Data collection from vCenter Storage Management Service failed. Please ensure vCenter Storage Management Webservice is started and Storage Management Service is functioning.

When I look at the "vCenter Service Status" everything is green. Any ideas on what to check?

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20 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

There is a service called "Management Web services" on vCenter machine. Make sure that is running.

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ysandfort
Expert
Expert

Are you running vCenter Server as a Windows Install or as an appliance?

If Windows, I would suggest to check that all services in the services pane are running. I found that sometimes vCenter view is not upodate. Maybe restart the Storage Profile service

On the Appliance, I guess only adivce is restart web service and vcenter service

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mclark
Expert
Expert

As I mentioned, ALL services in "vCenter Service Status" are up and running and are green.

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mclark
Expert
Expert

This is a Windows install. As I mentioned, ALL services in "vCenter Service Status" are up and running and are green.

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gradinka
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Are those a 'fault' type of alert?

if yes, you can cancel them manually.

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mclark
Expert
Expert

I don't believe that these are fault alerts, because if I click on the error line and then click the button that says "Cancel Fault Alert", I get back a message that says "Please select fault alerts to cancel.".

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mclark
Expert
Expert

Here is a screenshot of the console.

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gradinka
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

OK,

so this in and administrative type of alert.

(you can tell the by the 'type' column, you have an  "A" icon, also a tooltip should tell you that).

it seems there is a problem with the mentioned service. It might not be running, or connection to it is down, or something else.

- can you confirm it is green for you in this screen of VI-client?

in any case you can check the KB articles for it here: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/searchEntry.do

just search for "storage management webservice"

hope this helps!

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mclark
Expert
Expert

The SMS service is green in vCenter (all services are green).

I have 3 clusters in vCenter. Two are virtual server clusters and one is my View cluster. I only want vCOPS to monitor the 2 server clusters, so I set up a user in vCenter and gave that user rights to the 2 clusters desired, and none to the View cluster. I downloaded a diagnostic package from the vCOPS server, and in the action.log file I see the following error message. This message appears to maybe be what is causing the alert in the UI.


2012-02-06 13:44:14,974 ERROR [Timer-1] (15) com.integrien.adapter.vmware.sms.SmsPerformanceCollector.collect - Unable to obtain SMS data after retries
AxisFault
faultCode: ServerFaultCode
faultSubcode:
faultString:
faultActor:
faultNode:
faultDetail:
    {urn:sms}RuntimeFaultFault:<vim25:object type="Folder">group-d1</vim25:object><vim25:privilegeId>StorageViews.View</vim25:privilegeId>
    at sun.reflect.GeneratedConstructorAccessor126.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Class.java:355)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:308)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanDeserializer.<init>(BeanDeserializer.java:104)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BeanDeserializer.<init>(BeanDeserializer.java:90)
    at com.vmware.vim25.NoPermission.getDeserializer(NoPermission.java:159)
    at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor241.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BaseDeserializerFactory.getSpecialized(BaseDeserializerFactory.java:154)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.ser.BaseDeserializerFactory.getDeserializerAs(BaseDeserializerFactory.java:84)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.DeserializationContext.getDeserializer(DeserializationContext.java:464)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.DeserializationContext.getDeserializerForType(DeserializationContext.java:547)
    at org.apache.axis.message.SOAPFaultDetailsBuilder.onStartChild(SOAPFaultDetailsBuilder.java:157)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.DeserializationContext.startElement(DeserializationContext.java:1035)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.startElement(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.axis.encoding.DeserializationContext.parse(DeserializationContext.java:227)
    at org.apache.axis.SOAPPart.getAsSOAPEnvelope(SOAPPart.java:696)
    at org.apache.axis.Message.getSOAPEnvelope(Message.java:435)
    at org.apache.axis.handlers.soap.MustUnderstandChecker.invoke(MustUnderstandChecker.java:62)
    at org.apache.axis.client.AxisClient.invoke(AxisClient.java:206)
    at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invokeEngine(Call.java:2784)
    at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2767)
    at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2443)
    at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2366)
    at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:1812)
    at com.vmware.vim.sms.SmsBindingStub.queryList(SmsBindingStub.java:19249)
    at com.vmware.apputils.SmServiceConnection.queryList(SmServiceConnection.java:188)
    at com.integrien.adapter.vmware.sms.SmsPerformanceCollector.querySMS(SmsPerformanceCollector.java:427)
    at com.integrien.adapter.vmware.sms.SmsPerformanceCollector.collect(SmsPerformanceCollector.java:151)
    at com.integrien.adapter.vmware.sms.SmsPerformanceCollector.access$100(SmsPerformanceCollector.java:35)
    at com.integrien.adapter.vmware.sms.SmsPerformanceCollector$1.run(SmsPerformanceCollector.java:514)
    at java.util.TimerThread.mainLoop(Timer.java:512)
    at java.util.TimerThread.run(Timer.java:462)

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

The user account is missing a privilege to get data from SMS service. Add this privilege to the user account that you have given to VCOPS at the time of registration - StorageView.View.

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mclark
Expert
Expert

Thank you. Can you be a little more detailed on what privilege may be missing, and where that is? I have given it "Read-only" access in vCenter to the 2 clusters I want to be monitored. What else do I need to add the user to in vCenter?

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

The missing privilege is StorageViews-->View (mentioned in my previous reply). You need to create a role or edit an existing role in vCenter and add this privilege to it. This role should be given to the user account that is used to register VCOPS. Take a look at the install guide for more details.

mclark
Expert
Expert

I modified the existing role and added the StorageViews right you mention. It did not make any difference, the alerts remain. Apparently I am also missing where the rights are mentioned in the documentation because I looked over the 2 vCOPS 5 documents I found and it is not mentioned anywhere. If you can point me to the documentation that shows what rights I need to assign my collection user I will take a look at it and make sure I have everything set right.

UPDATE: I changed where I set the rights for the collection user and it helped a little. Instead of assigning the collection user rights at the 2 clusters I wanted it to have, I gave the user "No Access" rights to the View cluster and "Read Only" rights at the vCenter level, and now vCOPS sees that there are several datastores available (which it didn't before), but all the datastores are grayed out with "no data available" being shown. I will give it a little time and see if it starts collecting the data.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

You got it right. You have to assign the role with [required] privileges at the vCenter level and enable "Propagate to Child". Then, you can selectively assign the "No Access" role to objects that you don't want VCOPS to monitor. The reason for doing this is because certain privileges such as StorageViews-->View are checked at the vCenter level and not specific child object level.

I am not able to locate the relevant documentation right now. Will provide an update once I find it.

mclark
Expert
Expert

In addition to the rights assignment, a hotfix from VMware was required to fix this. Contact support (for now) to get the hotfix.

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ChaseHansen
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Do you happen to know any details I can give VMware Support to get this hotfix?

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gradinka
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

provide the logbundle and explain your issue.

Also you may point to this thread 😉

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ChaseHansen
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

No problem, logbundle generated and SR has ben created.         

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cduffy
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Just in case any one comes accross this in searching.  I had a similar (but not exact problem).  Turned out I used the "wrong" administrator account when installing vCOPS.

I went to the vCenter Server, launched services.msc, then double-clicked "VMware VirtualCenter management Webservices" service and changed the Logon from Local System account to the proper Domain account that was used on the vCenter database.  All better now.

-Chris

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