Maintenance Mode with vCenter as VM on Host

[jeremywatco]

I have an interesting issue.

Let me start out by saying that I do NOT have vMotion.

I have a cluster consisting of two hosts, HostA & HostB, with HA configured.

I have vCenter installed as a VM on HostA.

My issue is via vCenter is there any way to put HostA into Maintenance mode? If I try it says it wants me to power down all running hosts before it will go into maintenance mode. If I power down my host that has vCenter on it obviously it won't enter maintenance mode as the machine giving the instruction was just shutdown.

Any thoughts?

[vmroyale]

Hello.

You could try the following command:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

Good Luck!

[Troy_Clavell]

the easiest way to get the host into maintenance mode is log directly into the ESX Host in question, shutdown the running VM. Then enter maintenance mode.

Log directly into the second ESX Host, browse your shared datastore and find the .vmx for your vCenter VM and add it to inventory on the other host.

[jeremywatco]

Awesome! Thanks for the help.

Now in the event of a power or hardware failure of HostA, HostB will automatically take over and bring up my vCenter VM correct? It just wont if I do a manually shut down correct?

[BDorroh]

If you're saying you don't have HA, then I'm assuming you don't have shared storage. Shared storage is required for HA. If VM1, VM2 and VM3's files reside on HostA, that's where they'll stay, even if the host goes down.

The only way HostB can start those VMs is if it has access to them. And without shared storage, it won't.

[Troy_Clavell]

if HA is configured, then yes, if there is a failure, the VM, in this case vCenter, will be restarted on the other host in the cluster.