Configuring new replication gives error message: Some of the selected virtual machines are not in a valid state for replication

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptom:

• When configuring a VM for replication you receive the error: "Some of the selected virtual machines are not in a valid state for replication".
  
  Status: The virtual machine host does not support enhanced replication.

Environment

VMware vSphere Replication 

Cause

• There may be different versions of the "VMware-HBR-Agent" vib file installed on the source and destination ESXi hosts.  Check the installed vib on each host at both source and destination hosts by running below command:

esxcli software vib list | grep hbr  to obtain the installed hbr versions

Example:

[root@esx01:/vmfs/volumes/<DS_UUID>] esxcli software vib list | grep hbr
vmware-hbr-agent                       8.0.2-0.0.22517424                       VMware VMwareCertified                       2025-01-31                       host
vmware-hbrsrv                          8.0.2-0.0.22517424                       VMware VMwareCertified                       2024-08-23                       host

Note: Compare the version numbers on each host and remediate the hbr-agent as needed on the ESXi hosts running older / outdated versions.

Resolution

• Download the current HBR agent component from the replication appliance:  
  
  VR9022 ..vib location:  /opt/vmware/hbr/vib 
  VR904.... vib location: /opt/vmware/share/hbr/vib
  
  Go to https://vr_appliance FQDN/IP address:8043/vlcm/vmware-hbr-agent.zip

Or, login to the VRMS appliance using putty:

root@VRMS [ /opt/vmware/hbr/vib ]# ls -l
total 59136
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20194451 Sep 28  2023 VMware-ESXi-8.0.2-22517424-hbragent.zip
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20090149 Sep 28  2023 VMware-HBR-Agent-8.0.2-0.0.22517424-depot.zip
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20190426 Sep 28  2023 vmware-hbr-agent-8.0.2-0.0.22517424.i386.vib

• Use the WINSCP utility to copy and download the vib file or depot file locally to your laptop and then use it to upload the file on the desired ESXi host(s).

Manually install the vib file on the ESXi host:

For example:

esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/vmware-hbr-agent-8.0.2-0.0.22517424.i386.vib

or

esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/VMware-HBR-Agent-8.0.2-0.0.22517424-depot.zip

• Once the updated hbr-agent is installed, open a VAMI page to the replication appliance and under "Services", restart the hbrsrv service to ensure it connects without errors. Retry your operation and the error should be gone. If the issue is still seen then run this command on the host to restart the hbr-agent on the host: /etc/init.d/hbr-agent restart

Additional Information

There might be few instances wherein the hbr agent vibs aren't listed in ESXi hosts. To install the missing vib, please follow below mentioned steps;

• SSH to ESXi host with root credentials
• Validate missing vib via CLI: esxcli software vib list |grep -i hbrsrv
• If the replication is enabled, you can download the vib from replication link https://vr_appliance FQDN/IP address:8043/vlcm/vmware-hbr-agent.zip else, please navigate to Broadcom Portal to download the ESXi offline bundle .zip according to the ESXi version of the host, and extract the contents.
• Go to the folder in which the bundle was extracted and browse the vib20 folder. You see a list of folders with the driver's modules names. Search for vmware-hbrsrv folder, the hbrsrv vib would be present in this folder.

 

 

 

• Using WinSCP, SCP or a similar protocol, copy the hbrsrv vib file to the ESXi /tmp folder
• Install the vib on ESXi : esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/VMware_bootbank_vmware-hbrsrv_8.0.3.vib
• Confirm that the vib is installed by running : esxcli software vib list |grep -i hbr