vSAN witness host shows evaluation license after manual license change

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

After manually applying or changing a license key on a vSAN witness appliance, the host may display an evaluation license key with an expiration date.

Symptoms:

• The vSAN witness host displays "Evaluation Mode" in the vCenter Server license UI.
• A warning message appears: "Your host license expires in #### days. The host will disconnect from vCenter Server when its license expires."
• Removing the manual license does not restore the original embedded license.

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

The vSAN witness appliance must be redeployed to restore the embedded licensing. There is no supported mechanism to manually re-inject the embedded license for the witness host.

To replace the witness host:

1. Back up the vSAN witness configuration.
2. Deploy a new vSAN witness appliance using the OVF that matches your vSAN version.
3. Follow the replacement procedure documented in the reference below.For detailed steps, see: vSAN Stretch Clusters - How to Replace the Witness Appliance/Host

 

Additional Information

• For assistance with creating a support case, see Creating and Managing Broadcom Support Cases.
• For technical assistance, see Contact Broadcom Support.