Reinstalling the vpxa or aam agent without losing the host record from the VMware vCenter Server database

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information on updating or reinstalling the vpxa or aam agent without removing the ESX host from vCenter Server. This procedure ensures that the host and virtual machine entries, performance history, and resource pool references in vCenter Server are not lost.

VMware recommends to use this method if you do not want to lose database records.

Note: This process does not impact virtual machines that are running.

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x

Resolution

To update or reinstall the vpxa or aam agent in an ESX\ESXi host without removing it from vCenter Server:

1. Disconnect the host from vCenter Server.
2. Connect to the ESX\ESXi host using SSH.
3. Remove the vpxuser:
   
   For ESX:
   
   userdel vpxuser
   
   For ESXi:
   
   
   1. Log in to ESXi using the vSphere Client.
   2. Click Local Users & Groups and click Users.
   3. Right-click vpxuser and click Remove.
      
      Note: Do not remove the root user for any reason.
      
      
4. Run these commands to remove the vpxa or aam agent from an ESX 3.5 or ESX 4.x server:
   
   For vpx agent:
   
   /bin/rpm -qa | grep vpx
   /bin/rpm -e output from previous command
   
   For aam agent:
   
   /bin/rpm -qa | grep aam
   
   Note: The output of this command has two entries.
   
   /bin/rpm -e output from previous command
   
   
5. Run this command to remove the vpxa or aam agent from an ESX\ESXi server:
   
   For ESXi 3.5 and ESXi 4.x:
   
   /opt/vmware/uninstallers/VMware-vpxa-uninstall.sh
   /opt/vmware/uninstallers/VMware-aam-ha-uninstall.sh
   
   For ESXi 5.0.x, ESXi 5.1.x and ESXi 5.5.x:
   
   Note: This command uninstalls the HA agent (FDM) from ESXi 5.0 as aam functionality is no longer used for HA on vCenter Server 5.0. For further HA (Fault Domain Manager) troubleshooting steps, see Troubleshooting VMware High Availability (HA) issues in VMware vCenter Server 5.x and 6.0 (2004429). In ESXi 5.x, vpxa is now a part of the esxi-base package.
   
   cp /opt/vmware/uninstallers/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh /tmp
   chmod +x /tmp/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh
   /tmp/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh
   
   
6. Reconnect the host to vCenter Server.

Note: When you reconnect the host to vCenter Server, vpxuser is automatically recreated.

Additional Information

Note: You can run the cat /etc/shadow command to verify if the vpxuser has been removed.
Troubleshooting VMware High Availability (HA) issues in VMware vCenter Server 5.x and 6.0
vCenter Server データベースからホスト レコードを失うことなく、vpxa または aam エージェントを再インストールする
在不丢失 vCenter Server 数据库中主机记录的情况下重新安装 vpxa 或 aam 代理