Bringup fails while enabling EVC on management domain

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

Bring-up tries to enable EVC but fails with error similar to "Failed to enable EVC mode intel-skylake for cluster domain-cID"

Logs show below entries -

vcf-bringup.log

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+0000 [bringup,##############,1352] ERROR [c.v.e.s.c.c.v.vsphere.VcManagerBase,pool-2-thread-12] Task: (MOR:task-289) (Name:configureEvc) Entity: (MOR:domain-cID) (Name:esxiXX​) is failed
com.vmware.vim.binding.vim.fault.EVCAdmissionFailedVmActive: The host cannot be admitted to the cluster's current Enhanced vMotion Compatibility mode. Powere
d-on or suspended virtual machines on the host may be using CPU features hidden by that mode.
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:77)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
        at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstanceWithCaller(Constructor.java:500)
        at java.base/java.lang.reflect.ReflectAccess.newInstance(ReflectAccess.java:128)

        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1136)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:635)
        at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:840)

 

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2

Cause

This issue happens when the VC VM is powered on and is utilizing the features that the EVC mode (as provided in the deployment worksheet) is attempting to mask.

Resolution

Pre-requisites-

1. Enable Per-VM EVC on a test VM same as the EVC mode provided in the deployment worksheet
2. Once done, copy the feature masks added to the vmx as a result and add them to a Notepad file (Suppose, featMask.txt)

Workaround steps-

1. Shutdown the VCSA VM gracefully

2. Take a no memory snapshot of the VCSA VM

3. Access the ESXi host via SSH where the VCSA VM is running 

4. Go to the VC VM's vmx location in the datastore - cd /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore where VC VM is present>/<VC VM>

5. Take a backup of the vmx file(For eg. If the file name is vc.vmx, then you can use the below command)

cp vc.vmx vc.vmx.backup 

6. Edit the vmx file and add the lines gathered in the notepad file "featMask.txt" in the "Pre-requisites" section

vi vc.vmx

To start editing the file, use "Shift+I". Once done editing, save the file using ESC and then :wq!

7. Start the VC VM again and check if it comes up as expected and the VC UI is accessible

8. If yes, restart the bring up process.