Connection Error with Pre-Agent Upgrade Checker

[stanj]

I am upgrading vCenter from 4.1 to 4.1 Update 1

I ran the Agent Upgrade Checker.

The precheck returns  "connection error" for all of the ESXi Hosts.

4 Hosts failed.

The report does not show anything.

I can start the vCenter client from the vCenter Server and login directly to the ESXi Host.

Any ideas?

thanks

[Troy_Clavell]

are the ESXi Host currently connected to your vCenter Server?  You may just want to restart the management agents on the ESXi Hosts and then run the Pre-Agent Upgrade Checker again.

If you have SSH access you can restart from the CLI by issuing the below command

services.sh restart

or at the DCUI hit F2, log in, go to troubleshooting options and restart management agents

[stanj]

I SSH'd into an ESXi Server and issued the command.

Looks to have worked, but I see this at the end,,,

......Starting vmware-aam:vmware-aam already running - failed

I tried the Upgrade Checker against the one ESXi Server that I restarted the service on and get the same error

[Troy_Clavell]

Starting vmware-aam:vmware-aam already running - failed

this is a normal error.

For me, I would proceed with the upgrade of vCenter with a couple things to keep in mind.  FIrst make a full backup of your vCenter DB, set DRS to conservative (5 stars), then do the install.  When vCenter install's it will start the process of pushing the new vpx agent out to your ESXi Hosts.  I think you will be fine.

Worse case, is you may have to disconnect/connect the Host to push the agent again.

[stanj]

ok,

this is a development VM lab using the SQL Express DB.

still should back it up ...

[charlie88]

I'm getting the same error and have a large environment I need to upgrade, also from 4.1 to 4.1U1. This seems to have started somewhere between 15th March and 17th March.

I ran the Pre-Agent Upgrade Checker on 15/3 as preparation for an upgrade from VC 4.1 to 4.1U1 and the hosts passed. Upgrade was scheduled for 17/3- at this point I reran the Pre-Agent Upgrade Checker and all hosts now come back with "Connection error". There are no problems with connectivity to vCenter.

I also have a another vCenter environment that was successfully upgraded a couple of weeks previously. Interestingly all hosts on this also show "connection error" when using the Pre-Agent Upgrade checker

Both vCenters are running on W2K8R2.

The only change I can think of is each time the tool is run it downloads the latest AgentUpgradeChecker database - anyone at VMWare know if anything changed in this over the last couple of weeks?

Are there any logs I can review? The "results" from the tool give no information.

Thanks.

[stanj]

Interesting...

If VMware does not respond to the post, can you follow up with an SR?

[ctcbod]

Am also getting "connection error" on my production hosts (esx 4.0) and my test hosts (4.1).   Also tried this from and older version but get the same results and unfortunately the error report gives no information.  It's not a firewall issue as I temporarily allowed all incoming ports in my test env and ran the tool with the same results so still scratching my head with this.......

[Blackburn]

I'm getting the same error running the 4.1U1 pre-agent update check. A few days ago the check passed without any errors but now I get "Connection Error" on all 10 ESXi 4.0U2 hosts. The vCenter server is on the same subnet as the hosts so no firewalls between them.

[stanj]

I continued with the upgrade of vCenter and it worked.

  

However, I am seeing some other issues that I am currently posting about,

  

Like,

 

Resource pools disappeared under one DataCenter

Updating ESXi Server in one cluster to U1 worked, but the fails in another cluster.

  

Tomcat6 now consumes 100% of CPU.

(I currently modified the settings to use less RAM).

[charlie88]

I've figured out a workaround. The tool appears to be downloading some incorrect files.

In C:\Users\<loggedonusername>\AppData\Local\Temp> (this is on W2K8 - may be different depending on your O/S) are 2 files that are updated each time the PreAgent Upgrade Checker tool is run.

Can anyone confirm they see the same filesizes? Date / timestamp will be whenever the tool is run

29/03/2011  11:18 a.m.            63,641 vmware-agentupgradechecker

29/03/2011  11:18 a.m.            63,641 vmware-agentupgradechecker.sig

So to get the tool to work:

• Start the PreAgent Upgrade Checker tool
• Wait for it to complete "downloading agentupgradechecker upgrade database" i.e. wait for 1st interactive screen
• Replace the 2 files with the ones from the same directory as agentupgradechecker.exe ( should be in vpx\agentupgradecheck) - size as below - date / timestamp is for NZ timezone)

          04/01/2011  11:14 p.m.                64 vmware-agentupgradechecker.sig
          04/01/2011  11:14 p.m.             8,019 vmware-agentupgradechecker

• Then continue running the tool and it should work. Note some of the titles will be missing if you click through to any of the html reports

Would recommend you test this on a test host/ vCenter first and satisfy yourselves that you're happy with this before relying on it to give the ok for an upgrade. In my situation I've got the confidence that all my hosts passed before the tool broke.

[Blackburn]

Sorry for late reply. I tried the pre-agent upgrade check again today and get the same "Connection Error" message on all hosts. The files downloaded today are:

vmware-agentupgradechecker          64039 bytes

vmware-agentupgradechecker.sig     64039 bytes

If I look in the files they look like regular html files basically saying "Page not found", so it seems vmware has somehow removed the files that the agent check wants to download and you get html files instead which of course is not correct.

If I open the vmware-agentupgradechecker file (8019 bytes) on the 4.1U1 DVD it looks like a script with bash commands so I guess that is what the downloaded file should look like.

[Blackburn]

Now I found a KB article from vmware about this issue and their suggestion is the same as yours, to copy the files from the original media. Unfortunately they don't say why the download fails or where one can download the latest vmware-agentupgradechecker file.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1036848&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1