Vsan Configuration

[seamusobr1]

Hi I have two Vsan hosts configured with two vsan enabled VMkernel ports and the two hosts are on the HCL. Assuming the correct licensing is correctly applied when I go to try and configure vSAN on the cluster it shows a blink space under services such as below.

Just wondering why the vsan service is not visible when I start the configuration wizard

 

Thanks in advance

[IRIX201110141]

Because vSAN needs 3 or more Nodes.  Do you have already setup and added the witness Node to the vCenter?

Regards,
Joerg

[seamusobr1]

I am trying to setup a small metro cluster and I have created a witness appliance

Really weird scratch head time thanks for your help though

[Tibmeister]

Without a separate Shared Witness Appliance to run a 2-node vSAN cluster, you must have 3 or more nodes.  Now with that, you should still see something under services regardless because for all it knows, you may be configuring a Stretched vSAN cluster.  If you have the correct licensing added under vSAN, then I would try a restart of vCenter to make sure a process isn't hung up.

[seamusobr1]

Hi

Thanks for that I did try adding a witness and restarted the vcenter appliance and still nothing appeared under service

really weird

[TheBobkin]

 Is vCenter on the same or higher version as the ESXi hosts? e.g. 7.0 U3 vCenter and ESXi 7.0 U3/U2/U1 

[seamusobr1]

Thanks Bobkin

I checked that and the vcenter is running the same version

[TheBobkin]

 So, if vmware-vsan-health service isn't running at all you wouldn't be able to get into that configuration wizard at all (would just get something like 'Unable to retrieve the cluster configuration'), I would still be suspect of whether the service is running properly and/or communication to vsanmgmtd on the nodes is functioning okay.

You can try restarting this service:

# service-control --stop vmware-vsan-health

# service-control --start vmware-vsan-health

 

Or all vCenter services (note that ideally you shouldn't have any running tasks etc.):

# service-control --stop --all

# service-control --start --all

 

Another thing that have seen multiple times in the past where you get partially broken UI panes/wizards is a number of possible browser/client issues, it is always worth testing with browser in incognito mode, another browser and with a different log-in e.g. [e-mail] .

[seamusobr1]

Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you the problem was down to a certificate issue in the vcenter appliance

I logged a call with GSS and they ran a python script which fixed the issue after which the qui options re-appeared

Thanks again for all your advice

[TheBobkin]

 Thanks for closing the loop - this can be very valuable for anyone coming across such things in the future.

 

Yes, cert issues makes sense, I assume they used some variant of lstool (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/80469), those are some incredibly handy scripts as cert issues can in some cases be fairly involved/complex without them.