vsanmgmtd fails to start following using vSAN Shutdown cluster wizard.

Products

• VMware vSAN 7.x
• VMware vSAN 8.x

Issue/Introduction

vsanmgmtd is a daemon that runs on ESXi and is responsible for multiple aspects of configuration, management and monitoring of vSAN-enabled hosts.

This daemon is reliant on the configuration file /etc/vmware/vsan/vsanperf.conf, thus if there are issues with the availability, content or formatting of this file, vsanmgmtd may fail to start.

Environment

VMware vSAN 7.x
VMware vSAN 8.x

Cause

The vsanperf.conf file can have entries temporarily appended to it during some operations (e.g. vSAN Shutdown cluster wizard or usage of reboot_helper.py), if the vsanperf.conf has duplicate lines and/or misformatting (e.g. not ending in a blank new-line), this can cause issues for vsanmgmtd starting.

Example of impaired file content (note the last 3 lines):

└─$ cat ./etc/vmware/vsan/vsanperf.conf
[VSANPERF]
port = 9095
metrics_port = 9097
namespace = /vsanperf
keyfile = /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key
certfile = /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.crt
ca_certs = /etc/vmware/ssl/castore.pem
cert_reqs = True
no_auth = False
interval = 300
heart_beat = 5
max_workers = 4
loglevel = info
syslogident = VSANMGMTSVC
logsize = 10
logrotate = 8
data_keep_days = 93
db_purge_debug_mode = False
config_keep_limit = 5000
compress_config_info = 50
use_ramdisk = 0
diagnostic_mode = False
diagnostic_mode_ramdisk = 50
diagnostic_mode_interval = 1
diag_mode_duration = 1800
diag_mode_expiration = 86400
vsantop_mode = False
vsantop_mode_ramdisk = 100
vsantop_mode_interval = 5
ioinsight_mode = False
ioinsight_mode_ramdisk = 100
ioinsight_mode_interval = 10
ioinsight_data_keep_days = 90
ioinsight_wildcard_query_size_limit = 16000
top_n_size = 50
io_diag_data_keep_days = 30
io_diag_debug_mode = False
vc_vm_moid = 2

vc_vm_moId = 2

 

If this or similar issue is encountered, the currently active vsanmgmt.log may be blank and contain zero log-lines.

syslog.log on the host may log the daemon failing to start and start of the daemon being repeatedly attempted:

watchdog-vsanperfsvc[XXXXXXX]: 'vsanmgmtd -s -c /etc/vmware/vsan/vsanmgmt-config.xml' exited after 7 seconds (quick failure 1) 0
watchdog-vsanperfsvc[XXXXXXX]: Executing 'vsanmgmtd -s -c /etc/vmware/vsan/vsanmgmt-config.xml'
...
watchdog-vsanperfsvc[XXXXXXX]: 'vsanmgmtd -s -c /etc/vmware/vsan/vsanmgmt-config.xml' exited after 7 seconds (quick failure 2) 0
watchdog-vsanperfsvc[XXXXXXX]: 'vsanmgmtd -s -c /etc/vmware/vsan/vsanmgmt-config.xml' respawning too fast, sleeping for 20 seconds

 

vsansystem.log will log the following each time the service is attempted to be started:

time the service was last started 2025-XX-XXTXX:XX:XX.XXXZ, Section for vsanmgmtd, pid=XXXXXX, version=7.0.3, build=XXXXXXXX, option=Release

Resolution

The vsanperf.conf can be edited to only contain the expected content and format, or alternatively, a good copy of this file can be taken from another node in the cluster where vsanmgmtd is running normally (note: ensure both problematic and non-problematic nodes are on the same ESXi build) and used to replace the problematic file.