Unable to Power On VMs or Migrate VMs. Error Message "Transport (VMDB) error -45: Failed to connect to peer process"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Powering on or migrating a virtual machine fails with error:

Transport (VMDB) error -45: Failed to connect to peer process.

• There are messages similar to the following in /var/log/.vmsyslogd.err

[CRITICAL] vmsyslogd daemon starting

[ERROR] Files are missing from the audit record storage directory

• There are no other log files in /var/log  (e.g vmkernel.log, hostd.log, etc.)
• Auditrecords is enabled and configured in /scratch/log

Environment

vSphere ESXi 7.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the auditLog directory cannot be changed while auditrecords are enabled.

Resolution

Check audit records:
$ esxcli system auditrecords get
AuditRecordStatus:
Audit Record Remote Transmission Active: false
Audit Record Storage Active: true
Audit Record Storage Capacity: 100
Audit Record Storage Directory: /scratch/auditLog

Disable audit records:
$ esxcli system auditrecords local disable

Enable Audit records:
$ esxcli system auditrecords local enable

Show contents of auditLog directory:
$ ls /scratch/auditLog

 

Additional Information

ESXi Installation and Setup

Creates an audit record storage directory and unless specified, sets /scratch/auditLog as the default location. You must not manually create an audit record storage directory and you cannot change the audit record storage directory while audit record storage is enabled (see Syslog.global.uditRecord.storageEnable).