How to do Partial/Full Uninstall of NSX Manager

Products

• VMware NSX
• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article helps you when you are trying to uninstall some or all the components installed for NSX Manager from your environment.

Environment

VMware NSX for vSphere 6.4.x

Resolution

The procedure we follow is exactly the same when you have to do the Partial uninstall or Full,

You just have to make sure that you follow the steps for all the ESXi host which are part of the Cluster.

1. Reversing Host Prep

You need to connect to vSphere web client and then from there you need to unprepare the host and also make sure that NSX manager is still up and connected to vCenter Server.

Remove EAM Agency:

• Go to vCenter > Home > Administration > vCenter Solutions Manager > vSphere ESX Agent Manager
• Under the Management tab, Click X (under Actions) to delete the solution (Agency).
• Go to Networking and Security menu > Installation Tab and verify that the cluster is removed (if its a partial uninstall out of multi cluster environment)
• Sometimes if there is any issue then you can find the Agency using the vCenter MOB.

You need to remove the installed VIBs from each host which was prepared for VXLAN

esxcli software vib remove --vibname=esx-dvfilter-switch-security
esxcli software vib remove --vibname=esx-vsip
esxcli software vib remove --vibname=esx-vxlan

esxcli software vib remove --vibname=epsec-mux

• Reboot the ESXi host to make the changes in effect.

Note:
Check the EAM mob at https://vcenter/eam/mob/ (note the trailing /). Look for the agency that correlates to the cluster that is attempting to be uninstalled for any errors or reasons it may get stuck at Uninstalling under the Installation Tab of Networking and Security Menu of vSphere Web Client. You can try to manually delete the agency if you're sure that all uninstall steps mentioned above have been performed on the hosts. Sometimes restart of Web client Service will clear up the Uninstalling status.

Then we have to make sure that other components which are not required (only in case of full Uninstall) then we need to take care of them as well.

1. Turn Off any Firewall configured on the components (if any configured)
2. Delete edge appliances (if any) & NSX Manager/Controllers etc.
3. Remove DVPortGroups used for VTEP’s, Logical switch port groups and left over VTEP vmkernel interfaces.
4. Reboot the ESXi hosts.

2. vCenter Extension removal

1. Remove the NSX extension (vShield Extension) using vCenter MOB
2. Go to https://vcenter-ip/mob
3. Select Content ànd then select ExtensionManager
4. Click on the method Unregister Extension and enter the extension string; com.vmware.vShieldManager

3. Clean up/ Remove vSphere Web Client Files for NSX

For Windows Based vCenter Server </u>

1. Delete the directory(s) com.vmware.vShieldManager.** from C:\Program Data\VMware\vSphere Web Client\vc-packages\vsphere-client-serenity\
2. Restart the vSphere Web Client service from Adminstrator Tools (or Runàservices.msc) --> Services --> vSphere Web Client

For vCenter Server appliance</u>

1. Delete the directory(s) com.vmware.vShieldManager.** from:
   vCenter 6.0: /var/lib/vmware/vsphere-client/vc-packages/vsphere-client-serenity/
   vCenter 6.5: /var/etc/vmware/vsphere-client/vc-packages/vsphere-client-serenity/
2. Restart vsphere-web-client by issuing command service vsphere-client restart

4.) Deleting the NSX Manager Appliance (only in case of full Uninstall)

If you are doing the Full Uninstall then, after shutting down the NSX Manager appliance, you can right click and select Delete from Disk