After restarting the vCenter Server Appliance one or more services may fail to start.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• vCenter service is not starting
• VAMI page reports Health Status in an "Unknown" state
• DNS and NTP and root password expiry settings seems to have reverted to default settings
• The VCSA vami.log showed the below errors:

[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] [1448]ERROR:root:SSO initialization error: [Errno 99] Cannot assign requested address

 

vpxd.log shows that the vpxd service is trying to bind to an empty loopback address

[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] info vpxd[7FAB99932700] [Originator@6876 sub=AuthzStorageProvider] [AuthzStorageProvider::WaitForUpdate] Got exception  from WaitForNexUpdate(): N7Vmacore4Http24MalformedHeaderExceptionE(Server closed connection after 0 response bytes read; <io_obj p:0x0000003e53416d90, h:14, <TCP '[::1]:56772'>, <TCP '[::1]:10080'>>)
--> [context]zKq7AVECAAAAADWhbAAPdnB4ZAAAeF4rbGlidm1hY29yZS5zbwAAEBcbAMppGABIBBwApVwdAG1fHQAc7B0ArocaAAb6JQAe4SMAR6wjAC6vIwA3tysBVHQAbGlicHRocmVhZC5zby4wAAIdjA5saWJjLnNvLjYA[/context]
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] error vpxd[7FAB99932700] [Originator@6876 sub=httpUtil] [HttpUtil::ExecuteRequest] Error in sending request - Connection reset by peer
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] error vpxd[7FAB99932700] [Originator@6876 sub=ServerAccess] Exception while invoking remote login: N3Vim5Fault9HttpFault9ExceptionE(vim.fault.HttpFault)
--> [context]zKq7AVECAAAAADWhbAASdnB4ZAAAeF4rbGlidm1hY29yZS5zbwAAEBcbAMppGAEO01R2cHhkAAHcBIkBDQyJAUUQ9gE2EvYBkhL2ARET9gFCjKICuBwBbGliYXV0aHpjbGllbnQuc28AAsvUAQBHrCMALq8jADe3KwNUdABsaWJwdGhyZWFkLnNvLjAABB2MDmxpYmMuc28uNgA=[/context]
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] warning vpxd[7FAB9B76E700] [Originator@6876 sub=Default] Failed to connect socket; <io_obj p:0x00007fab4823d880, h:12, <TCP '0.0.0.0:0'>, <TCP '[::1]:10080'>>, e: system:111(Connection refused)
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] warning vpxd[7FAB99932700] [Originator@6876 sub=VpxdAuthClient] [ConnectAndLogin] Failed to loginBySamlToken: N7Vmacore15SystemExceptionE(Connection refused)
--> [context]zKq7AVECAAAAADWhbAAPdnB4ZAAAeF4rbGlidm1hY29yZS5zbwAAEBcbAMppGADIHysAcRUjAD4eJgAyICYAjT4mAG5KJgDL4CMAR6wjAC6vIwA3tysBVHQAbGlicHRocmVhZC5zby4wAAIdjA5saWJjLnNvLjYA[/context]
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] info vpxd[7FAB99932700] [Originator@6876 sub=VpxdAuthClient] fallback to loginByCertificate
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] warning vpxd[7FAB9B76E700] [Originator@6876 sub=Default] Failed to connect socket; <io_obj p:0x00007fab4836b010, h:12, <TCP '0.0.0.0:0'>, <TCP '[::1]:10080'>>, e: system:111(Connection refused)
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] error vpxd[7FAB99932700] [Originator@6876 sub=httpUtil] [HttpUtil::ExecuteRequest] Error in sending request - Connection refused

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.X

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 7.X

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 8.X

Cause

The /etc/hosts file was missing the IPV4 loopback address and localhost entries which caused the services to fail.

 

To verify follow below instructions.

 

Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance through SSH as root.

 

Run the below command:

 

# cat /etc/hosts

 

Output shows below

# Begin /etc/hosts (network card version)

# End /etc/hosts (network card version)
# VAMI_EDIT_BEGIN
# Generated by Studio VAMI service. Do not modify manually.
192.0.2.11 vc01.test.local vc01
# VAMI_EDIT_END
::1 localhost.localdom localhost

Resolution

Update the /etc/hosts file with the IPV4 loopback address 127.0.0.1 and localhost entries similar to the below.

# cat /etc/hosts

# Begin /etc/hosts (network card version)
127.0.0.1  vc01.test.local vc01  localhost
# End /etc/hosts (network card version)
# VAMI_EDIT_BEGIN
# Generated by Studio VAMI service. Do not modify manually.
192.0.2.11 vc01.test.local vc01
# VAMI_EDIT_END
::1 localhost.localdom localhost