vmware-pod service stopped on vCenter.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• The vmware-pod service appears in a Stopped state on the vCenter Server.
• Alarms are triggered during Machine SSL certificate renewal: "Failed to update the vCenter server TLS certificate on vSphere Pod Service" or "Failed to renew POD certificate."
• vCenter Upgrade prechecks (VDT) fail with: [FAIL] Services Check - The following services are stopped: vmware-pod.
• vCenter Server is deployed on-premises and not part of a cloud environment like VMC on AWS.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Resolution

The vmware-pod service is only required for cloud environments (such as VMware Cloud on AWS) and is not necessary for on-premises vCenter Server deployments. It can be safely disabled to clear alarms or pass pre-upgrade checks.

1. Connect to the vCenter Server via SSH or the appliance console.
2. Launch the bash shell by typing shell.
3. Stop the service:  service-control --stop vmware-pod
4. Disable the service to prevent it from starting automatically:  systemctl disable vmware-pod.service

To re-enable the service if environment requirements change:

1. Run the following command: systemctl enable vmware-pod.service

Additional Information

• vCenter Appliance /storage/log partition full due to excessive pod-startup.log files
• vmware-pod サービスが vCenter Server で停止しました