How to change the owner of the NSX Manager Cluster VIP

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

• The NSX Manager cluster VIP is owned by whichever node is the leader of the HTTPS group.
• There is no UI or API option to change the VIP owner.
• The node which owns the VIP can be seen on the NSX UI, System > Appliances.
• The current HTTPS leader can also be checked from admin cli

> get cluster status verbose

Group Type: HTTPS
Group Status: STABLE

Members:
    UUID                                       FQDN                  IP               STATUS          
    cdb93642-####-####-####-####018cd727       nsx1       192.###.###.84        UP              
    51a13642-####-####-####-####6cc2a7ae       nsx2       192.###.###.156       UP              
    d0de3642-####-####-####-####d22e486b       nsx3       192.###.###.54        UP              

Leaders:
    SERVICE                                    LEADER                                     LEASE VERSION                   
    api                                        cdb93642-####-####-####-####018cd727       8

 

Environment

VMware NSX 4.x

Resolution

Temporarily stopping the proxy service on the NSX Manager that currently owns the VIP will prompt a failover.
One of the other 2 NSX Managers will then be elected the HTTPS leader. This may take a few minutes to complete.

1. On the NSX Manager owning the VIP, SSH as the admin user and run;
   admin> stop service auth
2. UI or API requests directed directly at this node will no longer be served.
   1. Until the VIP fails over it will also be inaccessible.
3. Monitor for the VIP owner to change with this command, or for the HTTPS leader to change with the command in the Issue/Introduction field above.
   admin> get cluster vip
4. Confirm the NSX UI is again accessible via the VIP. 
5. The proxy service on the NSX Manager may already be restarted by the watchdog service, but if not it can be started again with;
   admin> start service auth