vSAN witness host may show evaluation license key after a manual license change.

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

After a manual license change on vSAN witness appliance, production witness appliance host may show evaluation license key with expiration date.

Environment

VMware vSAN 8.x

VMware vSAN 9.x

Cause

The issue is seen when user apply a standard license key for the vSAN witness appliance which would replace embedded license preconfigured with OVF. Upon removing the standard license from host, witness would show evaluation mode license.

Resolution

Since the embedded license is replaced by standard license, the witness host should be redeployed.

There is no option to restore the vSAN embedded license for the witness appliance hosts.

Refer the instructions in the KB vSAN Stretch Clusters - How to Replace the Witness Appliance/Host for deploying and changing the vSAN witness appliance on stretched clusters.