Storage Providers / IOFILTER

[Joel Finger]

I recently noticed I have a bunch of hosts showing in Storage Filters with either expired or expiring certificates that cannot be renewed.  These IOFILTERS are showing offline.  Well, I figured out why they are offline - the certificate issuer is the external PSC that got retired when our org moved to vCenter 7.  I know I can install fresh ESXi on a host and it will connect without issue.  I would like to avoid having to reload hosts in order for this issue to go away.  Eventually, I am planning on migrating hosts to a new vCenter v8 environment at which time all hosts are going to have an issue with the original certificate issuer.  

Thanks in advance.

[Eric Gravel]

I had that issue and followed this KB and fixed my issue.

 https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=84197

[Joel Finger]

Thank you for this.  As soon as I get my vCenter 8 licensing information, I'll detach one of my v7 hosts where the storage provider is showing offline, attach it to my v8 environment and run through that process.  Trying to think of what else this could mess with.  I don't that with hosts in this state, I couldn't introduce Commvault Replication IO filters and policies due to the host storage provider being offline.  

[Joel Finger]

I found that if I remove a host from inventory, rescan storage providers, then add it back, the cert was reissued by the vcenter server vs the old psc. I've got all my storage providers online again!

[nathnael]

To address the issue of expired or expiring certificates for your IOFILTERS due to the retirement of the external Platform Services Controller (PSC), you can follow these steps to avoid reloading the ESXi hosts:

• Repoint vCenter Server to a New PSC or Embedded PSC
• Regenerate ESXi Host Certificates
• Reconfigure the IOFILTERS
• Verify vCenter and ESXi Host Connectivity
• Plan for Migration to vCenter 8