Verifying that the vCenter Server Agent Service is running on an ESX host

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

For troubleshooting purposes, it may be necessary to verify if the vCenter Server Agent Service (vmware-vpxa) is running. This article provides you with the steps to check if the Agent Service is running on your ESX host.

Symptoms:

agent-service connection-failure not-responding vmware

Environment

VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESX Server 2.5.x
VMware ESX Server 2.0.x
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESX Server 2.1.x
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x
VMware ESX 4.1.x

Resolution

To verify if the vCenter Server Agent Service (vmware-vpxa) is running:

1. Log in to your ESX host as root, from an SSH session or directly from the console of the server.
2. Type ps -ef | grep vpxa .
3. Press Enter.
4. Type logout and press Enter to disconnect from the ESX host after you have reviewed the output.

If vmware-vpxa is running, you see output similar to:

[root@server]# ps -ef | grep vpxa
root 24663 1 0 15:44 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /opt/vmware/vpxa/bin/vmware-watchdog -s vpxa -u 30 -q 5 /opt/vmware/vpxa/sbin/vpxa
root 26639 24663 0 21:03 ? 00:00:00 /opt/vmware/vpxa/vpx/vpxa
root 26668 26396 0 21:23 pts/3 00:00:00 grep vpxa
[root@server]#

If vmware-vpxa is not running, you see output similar to:

[root@server]# ps -ef | grep vpxa
root 26709 26396 0 21:24 pts/3 00:00:00 grep vpxa
[root@server]#

Additional Information

For more information on troubleshooting why the vCenter Server Agent Service (vmware-vpxa) is not running, see Troubleshooting the vCenter Server Agent service when it does not start (1006128) .

Troubleshooting the vCenter Server Agent when it does not start