VDS showing out of sync with large number of filtering rules

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• VDS (vSphere distributed switch) showing out of sync intermittently.
• Large number (around 1000+) filtering rules configured.
• Rectify VDS does not work.
• The following log entries in vpxd.log/vpxa.log/hostd.log may been seen:
  
  error vpxa[2101497] [Originator@6876 sub=Req@vpxa3/7.0.2.0] length of HTTP request body exceeds configured maximum 20000000

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

Cause

Each update of vDS pushes all DVS port information to the ESXi hosts on the vDS.

When there are a large number of filtering rules, each update could exceed the 20MB configured maxdocsize parameter for VPXD/VPXA/HOSTD, which would cause VDS to become out of sync.

Resolution

Increase the VPXD/VPXA/HOSTD http soap request limit below for the following parameters:

1. Increase VPXD limit by setting vCenter advanced config parameters
   
   config.vmomi.soapRequest.maxDocSize = 50000000
config.vmomi.soapRequest.maxElements = 1000000


2. Change VPXA limit by modifying /etc/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg, add below before </config> last line
   

   <vmomi>
  <soapRequest>
    <maxDocSize>50000000</maxDocSize>
    <maxElements>1000000</maxElements>
  </soapRequest>
</vmomi>

   Then restart VPXA service with below command in ESXi:
   /etc/init.d/vpxa restart
   
   
3. Change HOSTD config by modifying /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml in ESXi host.
   
   Find below section and replace:
   <soapRequest>
<!--maximum size of each XML message.-->
<maxDocSize> 50000000 </maxDocSize>
<!--maximum nodes in of each XML message.-->
<maxElements> 1000000 </maxElements>
</soapRequest>
   
   Restart HOSTD service by below command:
   /etc/init.d/hostd restart
   
   

4. Rectify VDS from vCenter UI.