vSAN iSCSI Service is not automatically enabled after disabling/enabling vSAN or rejoining another vSAN Cluster

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

vSAN iSCSI Service is not automatically enabled after disabling/enabling vSAN or rejoining another vSAN Cluster.

According to the ESXi's vsansystem.log, starting vitd service failed during enabling/rejoining vSAN Cluster.

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.###Z In(166) vsansystem[#####]: [vSAN@6876 sub=Libs opId=#####] Util: Starting vitd
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.###Z In(166) vsansystem[#####]: [vSAN@6876 sub=Libs opId=#####] Util: ForkExec(/etc/init.d/vitd ++group=hostd-tmp restart) #####
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.###Z Wa(164) vsansystem[#####]: [vSAN@6876 sub=PyBackedMO opId=#####] |- EExit vim.cluster.VsanIscsiTargetSystem.editIscsiTargetService (1490 ms)

You might see vSAN Health alert vSAN Health Service - vSAN iSCSI target service – Service runtime status.

 

Environment

VMware vSAN 8.X

Cause

It was caused by the race condition during disabling/leaving vSAN Cluster. After that, vitd service won't start automatically during enabling/rejoining vSAN Cluster.

This issue is resolved in ESX 9.0 or later.

Resolution

If it happens, usually enabling vsan iscsi target manually would resolve the issue.

esxcli vsan iscsi status set --enabled=true

If the issue persists after enabling vsan iscsi target by esxcli command, please raise a support ticket.