Restarting the Management Agents on an ESX Server
It sometimes happens, you see errors about DRS not being able to apply resource settings, most likely do to an invalid fault. Well, the quick and easy fix for this (and most other common ESX/VC related issues) is to simply restart the Management Agents on your ESX host.
Restarting the Management agents on ESX Server 3.x
To restart the management agents on ESX Server 3.x:
-
Login to your ESX Server as root from either an SSH session or directly from the console of the server.
-
Type service mgmt-vmware restart.
Caution: Ensure Automatic Startup/Shutdown of virtual machines is disabled before running this command or you risk rebooting the virtual machines. For more information, see Restarting hostd (mgmt-vmware) on ESX Server Hosts Restarts Hosted Virtual Machines Where Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown is Enabled (1003312). -
Press Enter.
-
Type service vmware-vpxa restart.
-
Press Enter.
-
Type logout and press Enter to disconnect from the ESX Server.
If this process is successful, it appears as:
[root@server]# service mgmt-vmware restart
Stopping VMware ESX Server Management services:
VMware ESX Server Host Agent Watchdog [ OK ]
VMware ESX Server Host Agent [ OK ]
Starting VMware ESX Server Management services:
VMware ESX Server Host Agent (background) [ OK ]
Availability report startup (background) [ OK ]
[root@server]# service vmware-vpxa restart
Stopping vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]
Starting vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]
[root@server]#
Stopping VMware ESX Server Management services:
VMware ESX Server Host Agent Watchdog [ OK ]
VMware ESX Server Host Agent [ OK ]
Starting VMware ESX Server Management services:
VMware ESX Server Host Agent (background) [ OK ]
Availability report startup (background) [ OK ]
[root@server]# service vmware-vpxa restart
Stopping vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]
Starting vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]
[root@server]#
Note: If there are failures listed:
-
The most common reason for a stopping task to fail is that the service is not started.
-
If a starting task fails for the mgmt-vmware service, see Troubleshooting the VMware ESX Server Management Service when it will not start (1003561).
-
If a starting task fails for the vmware-vpxa service, see Troubleshooting the VirtualCenter Agent Service when it will not start (1006128).
Restarting the Management agents on ESX Server 3i
To restart the management agents on ESX Server 3i:
-
Connect to the console of your ESX Server.
-
Press F2 to customize the system.
-
Login as root.
-
Using the Up/Down arrows navigate to Restart Management Agents.
-
Press Enter.
-
Press F11 to restart the services.
-
When the service has been restarted, press Enter.
-
Press Esc to logout of the system.
The following dialogue indicates the process is complete: