ESXi Host Not Responding

[Issac08]

Hi All,

esxi host not responding ,but vm are still up and running .Cant migrate vm to another host since options are grayed out . How to troubleshoot this issue . Whether vm can be migrated in background using CLI

[a_p_]

Host not responding can be cause by several issues, e.g. incorrect DNS resolution of the host's FQDN, duplicate IP address, a crashed/stopped service on the host, ...

• Are you able to logon to the host's UI directly, by using the host's IP address in a browser?
• Run Test Management Network from the host's DCUI to see whether this returns ok on all tests.
• Consider restarting the host's Management Network from the DCUI.

André

[pragg12]

Hi,

Some more details about hardware and VMware environment would have been nice.

Check the status of hostd and vpxa service. Try re-starting them. Check the host.log and vpxa.log to see if there is any error.

If you don't find anything useful in there, you can also check vmkernel.log, vmkwarning.log and vobd.log at /var/run/log location.

Do check if any ESXi host partition is showing 100% full through df -h command. If any is showing full, consider emptying it a bit and then re-start management services.

Make sure you are re-starting management services in off business hours.

[jburen]

In addition to the above responses also check with your storage team to see if they changed something. I have experienced 'not responding' hosts when they are trying to reconnect to datastores that are no longer available. But that should also be visible in the logs.

[Issac08]

Tried all these steps ,but no luck .By any how i can move the VM from background before rebooting the Host.

[GastonAQS]

Can you log in to the ESXi host through web console? There you can check all VMs that are running on the host.

[Issac08]

All VMs are running but it is grey out

[GastonAQS]

What if you unregister vms on affected host and you register it in another one? But you have to power off the vm to do this

[Issac08]

Without power off it is possible ?Any other solutions

[GastonAQS]

It's not possible unregister/register without power off the VM. I have to keep looking to give you another clue.

[Issac08]

Yes I totally agree ,but for poweroff i can reboot the host so that vmotion will happen right ,register and un register seems to be additional task .Correct me if i ma wrong

[GastonAQS]

I'm sorry but I'm not sure. If the host does not vmotion all machines, the vms are going to power off and power on when the host boot up.

Looks the same than unregister/register, I would use this case if I know that the host is going to be removed or it's with a critical issue which is not solved with a reboot.

[Issac08]

Yes Gaston i totally agree reboot doesn't help in all cases . But the recent issue rebooted the host and during reboot vm's was migrated to other host.

[GastonAQS]

And the host is up now? And the VMs are not in grey any more?

[Issac08]

Yes Gaston ,Host is up after vm's are in another host now .Keep the host in maintenance as of now

[GastonAQS]

Nice, I think it's all. Maybe check some logs to try to know the source of the problem.