Error adding an ESX host to Virtual Center Server

A colleague set up a new ESX host we are going to host in our DMZ. He claimed to have followed the Work Instruction I created.

This was our first VMware Server in the DMZ. I was expecting some problems because of the requirement to punch some holes in the FireWall. The Server Configuration Guide is an excellent source of information for the details on how to manage an ESX server through a FireWall. It details the ports that need to be opened; the protocols those ports will be using; and the reasons why they need to be opened.

In the VI client attached to the VirtualCenter Server, I selected the DataCenter and selected Add Host from the menu. After resolving some FireWall problems, of which more in a later blog, I entered the server name, admin id and password, checked the returned information and clicked through the next three pages.

Only to receive the pop-up error message "Failed to install the VirtualCenter Agent Service"!

I googled online for other people's experiences. Most people encounter this sort of problem after an upgrade. In those instances, the problems occur when the VirtualCenter agent service on the ESX host hasn't been upgraded for some reason.

There were some suggestions that this could occur if /tmp/vmware-root doesn't exist. It did on my server.

Others suggest that a simple restart of the mgmt-vmware service would resolve the problem. It didn't on my server.

Others again suggested restarting the vmware-vpxa service. My server had no such service. Aha!

rpm -qa | grep -i vpxa

returned nothing.

A chap called Rene has a blog where he describes how to perform a manual upgrade process of the vpxa-vmware agent. Unfortunately, it is for an earlier version of VMware. The path referenced is slightly different on my VirtualCenter server. The version number of the file is distinctly different. The real scoop on manually upgrading/installing the vpxa-vmware service can be found in the this thread from the VMware Communities website.

N.B. The correct path on my VirtualCenter server is C:\program files\vmware\infrastructure\virtualcenter server\upgrade. Check the bundleversion.xml file for the correct file to copy across to server. For my VirtualCenter server v2.5 and ESX server v3.5 was vpx-upgrade-esx-7-linux-64192.

So I sftp-ed the file to the server. I ran the shell script. The service still wasn't installed! The rpm was still not installed! So I tried to install the rpm from the command line with rpm -ivh . It failed again, but at least provided me with a useful error.

The /opt partition did not have sufficient space left! Which was odd as it should be a 1Gb in size. I checked. It was 24 Mb. And already half used! Oh dear!

I created a /optn directory - there was plenty of space left on the / partition; tar-ed the contents of /opt to /optn; umount-ed /opt; renamed /optn to /opt; and commented out the /opt entry from the /etc/fstab file. I ran the install script again. Success! Huzzah!

Well! That's that!