hp-ams process does not stop when restarting ESXi management agents on HP ProLiant G5, G6 and G7-series servers

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

 

When restarting ESXi management agents on HP ProLiant G5, G6 and G7-series servers running versions of HP Agentless Management Service (AMS) prior to 10.1.0 , you experience these symptoms:

• In the Recent Tasks pane of vCenter Server, you see multiple tasks in the In Progress state
• Virtual machines that still have a stuck In Progress task are greyed out
• You are unable to edit the settings on a virtual machine that has a stuck task
• The host in which the virtual machines reside are running on HP Proliant Gen 5, 6 or 7 hardware
• When you run the services.sh restart command within the ESXi console, you see this output while stopping the hp-ams service:
  
  Running hp-ams.sh restart
  ~ # Stopping process ...
  Stopping process ...
  Stopping process ...
  Stopping process ...
  Stopping process ...
  Stopping process ...
  Stopping process ...

Environment

• VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
• VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
• VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
• VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

Cause

This issue occurs when you use an older HP Customized VMware image to update any HP ProLiant G5, G6 or G7 servers running VMware ESXi 5.0, 5.1 or 5.5. These models cause the HP Agentless Management Service (AMS), Versions 9.5, 9.6 or 10.0 to make continuous restart attempts and potentially fill up syslog with this message:

root: hp-ams-wd: Detected one or more hpHelper process(es) have stopped running. Restarting...

root: hp-ams stop service...

root: hp-ams-wd: hp-ams start...

root: hp-ams start service...

hpHelper[15106]: hp-ams ver 9.5.0-26: System Product Name is ProLiant BL460c G6.

hpHelper[15106]: hp-ams ver 9.5.0-26: This program will only run on HP ProLiant Gen8 or newer platforms.

 

Currently, HP AMS is only supported on ProLiant Gen8 (or later) hosts.

Resolution

Remove the hp-ams package from the affected ESXi hosts and replace it with the latest version, 10.1.0 or later. Alternatively, you may reinstall ESXi from the latest HP Customized ESXi Images dated March 2015 or later.
 

To remove the hp-ams package from an ESXi host:

1. Move the ESXi host in to maintenance mode.
2. Log in to the ESXi host as root.
3. Run this command to stop the HP Agentless Management Service:
   
   /etc/init.d/hp-ams.sh stop
   
   Note: If it is in the process of stopping, press CTRL+Cto stop the current process.
    
4. Run this command to remove the the HP Agentless Management Service:
   
   esxcli software vib remove -n hp-ams
    
5. Reboot the ESXi host.

To install the latest HP AMS VIB in an existing ESXi installation, follow the instructions in Download and install async drivers in VMware ESXi.

You can find the HP Agentless Management Service (AMS) Offline Bundle for VMware vSphere 5.5, hp-ams-esxi5.5-bundle-10.1.0-12.zip, dated 30 Mar 2015 at * RECOMMENDED * HP Agentless Management Service Offline Bundle for VMware vSphere 5.5.

For more information about this AMS update, see Advisory: HP Customized VMware Images - HP Agentless Management Service (AMS) May Continuously Try to Restart When Any HP Customized VMware Images Are Used on HP ProLiant G5, G6 and G7-Series Servers.

Additional Information

Download and install async drivers in VMware ESXi