Determining the host when browsing a datastore by vCenter Server

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article explains how vCenter Server determines which ESX/ESXi host to use when you are browsing a datastore.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.x

Resolution

vCenter Server chooses from a list of ESX/ESXi hosts that can see shared datastores. vCenter Server picks the first one (when a download is done via the datastore browser in vSphere Client) or the last one (when a download is done via a browser connected to vCenter Server).

 

You can view which host vCenter Server is using by looking at trivia enabled vpxd logging for entries similar to:

 

Sending soap request to [TCP:<host2>:443]:<API-Name-Related to datastore browser>

 

where <host2> is the ESX/ESXi host that vCenter Server is using.

 

Example log output:
 

trivia 'vmomi.soapStub[36]' opID=C0BF1A5F-000003B2-db] Sending soap request to [<cs p:0000000021e0f6d0, TCP:esx12345.vmware.com:443>]: searchDatastore {}

 

For more information, see Enabling trivia logging in VirtualCenter (1001584).

Note: If you are trying to download a file such as a VMX from a powered-on VM on an ESXi host not currently selected by VPXD as the file access host, the download will fail because the file access host will not have access to the locked file.


 

Additional Information

Enabling trivia logging in VMware vCenter Server