ESXi host Locked in Skyline Health after hardware replacement and reinstallation

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

ESXi host is displaying as "Locked" in VMware Skyline Health. This issue is observed after the host experienced hardware failure, leading to a hardware replacement and a fresh installation of ESXi.

Verifying the host's cluster state via CLI reveals that the host is no longer participating in the vSAN cluster.

Environment

ESXi 8.0.3 

Cause

Following a hardware replacement and fresh installation of ESXi, the host does not automatically rejoin the existing vSAN cluster, leaving it in an isolated and locked state from the perspective of the cluster.

Resolution

• Connect to the affected ESXi host via SSH.
  
  
• Retrieve the existing vSAN sub-cluster UUID from a healthy host within the same cluster by running:

          esxcli vsan cluster get

• On the affected (reinstalled) host, manually join it back to the vSAN cluster using the retrieved sub-cluster UUID:
  

  esxcli vsan cluster join -u <UUID>

  For e.eg (esxcli vsan cluster join -u ########-####-####-####-############)
  
  
• Verify the host has been successfully added back to the vSAN cluster and that the health state is reporting correctly:

         esxcli vsan cluster get