Hosts Disconnected from vCenter after Replacing Expired ESXi Evaluaton Licenses with vSphere Essentials Licenses

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Difficulties replacing an expired evaluation license for ESXi hosts if configured for features not available in vSphere Essentials licensing.
• When the host is licensed, an error may appear stating the license is incompatible with the selected license, or the host may connect to vCenter and then disconnect after a few seconds.

Environment

Environments planning to use vSphere Essentials licensing - max 3 host per vCenter.

Cause

vSphere Essentials licensing does not support vSphere vMotion, or vCenter High Availability features.

Resolution

If these features were set up and used during the host's evaluation license usage period, the features need to be removed from the host before the Essentials license can be applied.

• Document impacted hostnames/IPs, as needed.
• Remove host(s) with expired full EVAL license from vCenter.
• Open a connection to the host in the host web client (https://<hostIPaddressOrFQDN>) 
  • If vMotion was used on the host during its evaluation license:
    • Edit the host's vmkernel ports.
    • Deselect the vMotion service from all vmk ports where it may be enabled.
    • Save changes after removing the vMotion service from the vmkernel ports.
• Connect to the host via SSH (enable/start SSH service on the host as needed from Host | Manage | Services)
  • Remove the FDM VIB (cluster HA agent) from the host using the command below:
    

esxcli software vib remove -n vmware-fdm 

Note: This is not applicable from ESX 9.0 onwards.

• Copy needed host license key from the Customer Connect portal or from vCenter Administration | Licensing
  • Assign the Essentials license to the host.
  • Verify the KEY is validated successfully.
• In vCenter Web UI: 
  • Add the host back to vCenter. 
    • During the add host prompts, reassign the Essentials license as directed.
    • The host should connect to vCenter successfully and stay connected to vCenter. 
      • Note: vCenter will not allow you to add or place a vSphere Essentials licensed host in a Cluster.  
• Repeat the process above for any other hosts that need expired host licenses reconfigured for vSphere Essential licensing and need the HA/vMotion features disabled before the host license can be applied.

Additional Information

VMware Documentation: 

• Comparison of vSphere Product Features
• Blog: Features/limits of Essential versions
  • Note: vMotion is not included in VMware Essentials licensing. Cold migrations are required between hosts.