Collecting information about tasks in VMware ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When there are troubleshooting issues with ESXi hosts and VMware vCenter Server, there may be differences between what vCenter Server and an ESXi host considers tasks.
  
  
• An issue may occur when a task within vCenter Server times out. And when attempting to run other tasks, the following error may appear:
  
  Another task is already in progress.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Resolution

Note: For more information on resolving the symptoms described above, see Restarting the Management agents on an ESXi or ESX host. If the problem is re-occurring, attempt to determine which task the ESXi host is taking a long time to process.

To isolate the task, follow these steps for the appropriate host.

1. Log into the ESXi host at the console or via SSH. For more information, see Unable to connect to a ESXI host using Secure Shell (SSH)
2. To get a list of tasks on the host, run the command:
   
   vim-cmd vimsvc/task_list
   
   The output is similar to:
   
   (ManagedObjectReference) [
'vim.Task:haTask-112-vim.VirtualMachine.createSnapshot-3887',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool21-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33252',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool22-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33253',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool3-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33254',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool5-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33255',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool6-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33256',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool7-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33257',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool8-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33258',
'vim.Task:haTask-pool10-vim.ResourcePool.updateConfig-33260'
]
    
3. To get a list of tasks associated to specific virtual machines, it is necessary to first get the Vmid of the virtual machine by running the command:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
   
   The output is similar to:
   
   Vmid Name File Guest OS Version Annotation
112 VM-1 [Datastore] VM-3/VM-3.vmx winLonghornGuest vmx-04
128 VM-2 [Datastore] VM-3/VM-3.vmx winXPProGuest vmx-04
144 VM-3 [Datastore] VM-3/VM-3.vmx winNetStandardGuest vmx-04
    
4. Make note of the values under the Vmid column as they are referenced in later steps.
5. After obtaining the Vmid, a list can then be obtained of the tasks associated with a specific virtual machine by running the command:
   
   vim-cmd vmsvc/get.tasklist VMID
   
   Where VMID is the number identified in step 4.
   
   The output is similar to:
   
   (ManagedObjectReference) [
'vim.Task:haTask-112-vim.VirtualMachine.createSnapshot-3887'
]
 
6. Make note of the task identifier. In the example above, the task identifier is:
   
   haTask-112-vim.VirtualMachine.createSnapshot-3887
    
7. To get information about the status of a particular task, run the command:
   
   vim-cmd vimsvc/task_info task_identifier
   
   Where task_identifier is the string recorded in step 6.
   
   The output is similar to:
   
   (vim.TaskInfo) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
key = "haTask-112-vim.VirtualMachine.createSnapshot-3887",
task = 'vim.Task:haTask-112-vim.VirtualMachine.createSnapshot-3887',
description = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) null,
name = "vim.VirtualMachine.createSnapshot",
descriptionId = "VirtualMachine.createSnapshot",
entity = 'vim.VirtualMachine:112',
entityName = "deploy-test",
state = "running",
cancelled = false,
cancelable = false,
error = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
result = <unset>,
progress = 15,
reason = (vim.TaskReasonUser) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
userName = "root",
},
queueTime = "2012-11-28T01:29:35.233835Z",
startTime = "2012-11-28T01:29:35.234891Z",
completeTime = <unset>,
eventChainId = 2936866,
changeTag = <unset>,
parentTaskKey = <unset>,
rootTaskKey = <unset>,
}

Additional Information

Restarting the Management agents in ESXi

Unable to connect to an ESXI host using Secure Shell (SSH)
vCenter operation times out with the error: Operation failed since another task is in progress
Troubleshooting virtual machine power on task hangs