com.vmware.vcIntegrity user initiated guest shutdown of VMs to force ESXi host into maintenance mode during remediation

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When remediating an ESXi host in an image-based cluster, VMs that can't be migrated are powered off to allow the ESXi host to enter Maintenance Mode ahead of remediation.

In the vCenter Server logging, the following or similar logging is seen.

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS info vmware-vum-server[56209] [Originator@6876 sub=Telemetry] [TelemetryManager 261] Sending telemetry data: {"@type":"pman_effective_coordinator_policy","taskId":"<taskID here>","entityId":"entityID here>","failureAction":"RETRY","failureActionRetryDelay":300,"failureActionRetryCount":3,"preRemediationPowerAction":"POWER_OFF_VMS","enableQuickBoot":true,"disableDpm":true,"disableHac":false,"evacuateOfflineVms":false,"enforceHclValidation":true,"parallelRemediationEnabled":false,"maxHostsForParallelRemediation":0,"enforceQuickPatch":false}

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

The Cluster Remediation Setting for VM Power State will power off any powered-on VMs on the host if it is unable to migrate them ahead of placing the host into Maintenance Mode. The default selection is Do not change power state.

Lifecycle Manager > Settings > Image > Edit Cluster Remediation Settings

 

This is working as designed.

Resolution

Change this Cluster Remediation Setting to Do not Change power state, and manually migrate any pinned VMs to other hosts.  

Additional Information

How to Configure the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Remediation Settings