Restarting Management Agents in ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article details how to restart the management agents on an ESXi host.

Warning:
Do not use services.sh restart command on ESXi hosts running vSAN.
Do not use services.sh restart command if LACP is in use.

Do not use services.sh restart command if NSX is configured in the environment.

Do not use services.sh restart command If using shared graphics in a View environment (VGPU, vDGA, vSGA).

Restarting the host's management agents may impact currently running tasks, including impact on the guest virtual machines on the host.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Resolution

Restart Management agents in ESXi Using Direct Console User Interface (DCUI):

1. Connect to the console of your ESXi host.
2. Press F2 to customize the system.
3. Log in as root.
4. Navigate to Troubleshooting Options > Restart Management Agents. Press Enter.
5. Press F11 to restart the services.
6. When the service restarts, press Enter.
7. Press Esc to log out.

Restart Management agents in ESXi using the Host Client:

1. In Host Client, select Host >> Manage >> Services and select the service to restart.

Restart Management agents in ESXi Using ESXi Shell or Secure Shell (SSH):

1. Log in to ESXi Shell or SSH as root.
2. Run:
   $ /etc/init.d/hostd restart
$ /etc/init.d/vpxa restart

Restart all management agents on the host:
Caution: Do not run this command if NSX is configured in the environment.

1. Log in to ESXi Shell or SSH as root.
2. Run:
   $ services.sh restart

Additional Information

Run this command to verify NSX for vSphere is installed on an ESXi host:
$ esxcli software vib list --rebooting-image | grep esx-*