ESXi server integration issue with vCenter server 6.5.0.

ESXi server integration issue with  vCenter server 6.5.0.

vCenter-->It has NAT IP address and located in one country(US1)

ESXi---> It also has NAT IP address and located in another country(TOR)

Issue 1:-

Error in vCenter while connecting the ESXi host:- A general system error has occurred: Timed out waiting for vpxa to start".

ESXi host error:- VPXA service got stopped after 19 seconds(whenever we restart).There was no VPXA log recorded in VPXA.log.

In addition,we found this error in cat /var/log/syslog.log  error  "/etc/vmware/vpxa' exited after 19 seconds (quick failure 1) 134"

Reference :-  https://communities.vmware.com/thread/602035

We removed the / from <serverIP> & <serverPort> in the beginning of VPXA configuration and taken vpxa start.It resolved this VPXA service start issue without ESXi reboot.

Note:- Previoulsy it was  <serverIP/> & <serverPort> in the VPXA configuration,

Issue 2 :-

After VPXA service fix,we had connectivity issue again with vCenter server(frequent ESXi disconnect with vCenter).We increased the VPXD timeouts in vCenter server web client "config.vpxd.heartbeat.notRespondingTimeout" to 120 seconds as per the below given article.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1005757

Issue 3:-

After timout increase to 120 seconds in VPXD configuration,we had connectivity issue again with vCenter server(frequent ESXi disconnect with vCenter every 120 seconds.I.e, 2 minutes)...

At the same time,in the VPXA config "<serverIp>209.x.x.x</serverIp>"it started changed automatically to vCenter private address even though we add in vpxa.cfg.

This happened because of all the ESXi servers are behind NAT public IP address.

Fix:-

1) We added this line in vpxa.cfg "<preserveServerIp>true</preserveServerIp>"

2) We added the vCenter  NAT public IP address in vpxa.cfg "<serverIp>209.x.x.x</serverIp>"

3) And we created a new vmkernel port group(with new vSwitch and no VLAN,no nic binding needed) with ESXi NAT public IP address.

This fixed the issue.

Reference articles:-

http://austit.com/faq/306-vsphere-esxi-behind-nat-vcenter-connection

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/567799

VPXA error in all the three ESXi servers:-

Failed to bind heartbeat socket for host address  Cannot assign requested address

Failed to bind heartbeat socket for host address 207.x.x.x: Cannot assign requested address

Modified VPXA configuration in ESXi servers.

<vpxa>

    <bundleVersion>1000000</bundleVersion>

    <datastorePrincipal>root</datastorePrincipal>

    <hostIp>207.x.x.x</hostIp>

    <hostKey>52a8daca-2271-6aa9-9f25-debb1f910e05</hostKey>

    <hostPort>443</hostPort>

    <licenseExpiryNotificationThreshold>15</licenseExpiryNotificationThreshold>

    <memoryCheckerTimeInSecs>30</memoryCheckerTimeInSecs>

    <preserveServerIp>true</preserveServerIp>

    <serverIp>209.x.x.x</serverIp>

    <serverPort>902</serverPort>

Happy learning

Cheers,

Manivel R