ESXi host becomes disconnected, vm's not responding

Products

• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x

Issue/Introduction

• Hostd service has crashed, showing similar entries to the following in hostd-probe.log

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS error hostd-probe[2102169] [Originator@6876 sub=Default] hostd detected to be non-responsive

• In syslog.log file, you can see lines similar to: 

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS lwsmd: [LwKrb5GetTgtImpl ../lwadvapi/threaded/krbtgt.c:262] KRB5 Error code: -1765328360 (Message: Preauthentication failed)

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS lwsmd: [lsass] Failed to run provider specific request (request code = 14, provider = 'lsa-activedirectory-provider') -> error = 40022, symbol = LW_ERROR_PASSWORD_MISMATCH, client pid = 2300000

 

• In vmkernel.log file, you can see lines similar to:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS In(182) cpu5:2100717)Admission failure in path: host/vim/vmvisor/likewise:lwsmd.2100697:uw.2100697

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS cpu5:2100717)UserWorld 'lwsmd' with cmdline '/usr/lib/vmware/likewise/sbin/lwsmd --syslog'

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS cpu5:2100717)uw.2100697 (20688) extraMin/extraFromParent: 34/34, likewise (649) childEmin/eMinLimit: 23282/23296

Environment

ESXi 7.0
ESXi 8.0

Cause

Time on ESXi host is out of sync

Resolution

Verify that ESXi's ntpd service matches the AD DC's timing.

It is recommended that ESXi and AD DC point to the same NTP server.
The solution is to restart the ntpd service of ESXi host, please refer to the following KB:
Configuring Network Time Protocol (NTP) on an ESXi host using the vSphere Client