Site Pair configuration: Repeated install tasks appear in vCenter server recent tasks after deploying vSphere Replication Appliance

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

• After deploying the vSphere Replication appliance, repeated Install tasks are observed for ESXi hosts in the cluster under Recent Tasks in the vCenter Server UI.

• These tasks appear to complete successfully but are re-initiated periodically for certain hosts.

• On some ESXi hosts, the Install task runs once and is not repeated. On these hosts, the hbr-agent is successfully installed. You can verify the installation of the hbr-agent by:
  
  Navigating to Host > Configure > Packages in the vSphere Client and checking for the hbr-agent package. 

  
  
  Or, by taking ssh to the ESXi host and running the command esxcli software vib list | grep hbr

  Sample output of the command:

  esxcli software vib list | grep hbr
  vmware-hbr-agent        8.0.3-0.0.23960048     VMwareCertified   2024-07-09    host
  vmware-hbrsrv              8.0.3-0.0.24022510     VMwareCertified   2024-06-19    host

• For all ESXi hosts where the Install tasks are continuously reinitiated, the hbr-agent is not installed—despite the task status showing Completed.

• The cluster contains a mix of ESXi host versions.

• Upon checking the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix, it is found that hosts where the agent installs successfully are compatible with the vSphere Replication appliance version.

• Hosts with repeated install tasks are not compatible with the deployed appliance version.
  
  Example:
  If the vSphere Replication appliance is on version 8.7, and the cluster has hosts on ESXi 7.0 U3 and ESXi 6.7 U3, the compatibility matrix indicates that ESXi 6.7 U3 is not supported with vSphere Replication 8.7, leading to the described behavior.
  
  

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The repeated Install tasks are triggered by the vSphere Replication (VR) appliance attempting to deploy the hbr-agent VIB on ESXi hosts that are not compatible with the version of the appliance. Although the tasks show as Completed in the vCenter Server, the installation silently fails on incompatible hosts, resulting in the appliance retrying the operation periodically.

Resolution

Update the affected ESXi hosts to a version that is compatible with the deployed vSphere Replication appliance.

To verify compatibility between the vSphere Replication appliance and ESXi host versions, refer to the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix.