ESXi hosts intermittently show "Host connection and power state" alarms during VIB installation failures

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

vCenter Server experience intermittent host disconnections and triggers "Host connection and power state" alarms for managed ESXi hosts. These events typically occur when the managing system attempts to install or update VIB packages (such as vr2c-firewall.vib).

While network connectivity appears stable, the following errors are observed in the ESXi vpxa.log:

 Result:
 (vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault) {
    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    faultMessage = <unset>,
    text = "/usr/sbin/esxupdate returned with exit status: 7"
    msg = "An error occurred during host configuration: /usr/sbin/esxupdate returned with exit status: 7."
 }
 Args:

 Arg metaUrls:
 (string) []
 Arg bundleUrls:
 (string) []
 Arg vibUrls:
 (string) [
    "https://#.#.#.#:8043/vib/vr2c-firewall.vib"
 ]
 Arg spec:
 (vim.host.PatchManager.PatchManagerOperationSpec) {
    proxy = "VCENTER01.com",
    port = 80,
    userName = <unset>,
    password = <unset>,
    cmdOption = <unset>
}

Task arguments reveal a proxy configuration missing a protocol prefix (e.g., proxy = "VCENTER01.com" instead of http://VCENTER01.com).

Environment

VMware vCenter Server
VMware vSphere Replication

Cause

• The issue is caused by a malformed proxy configuration string pushed by the managing system (such as vSphere Replication) during the installation of a VIB package.
• The esxupdate utility fails to parse the proxy URL because it lacks a required protocol prefix (e.g., http:// or https://).
• This results in an "Unsupported proxy protocol" fault, which vCenter misinterprets as a general host communication failure or disconnection.

Resolution

To stop the recurring installation failures and clear the vCenter alarms, follow these steps to disable the automatic installation of the Host-Based Replication (HBR) agent:

• SSH into the vSphere Replication Appliance using the root account.
• Disable the automatic VIB installation by running the following command:
  

  • /opt/vmware/hms/bin/hms-configtool -cmd reconfig -property hms-auto-install-vr2c-vib=false     - Use this command for 8.2 and below. 
    
    /opt/vmware/hms/bin/hms-configtool -cmd reconfig -property hms-auto-install-hbragent-vib=false - Use this command for 8.3 and above. 

• Restart the HMS service to apply the changes:

  • systemctl restart hms

Note: If you are using vSphere Replication for traffic encryption, you must manually install the VIB on the participating ESXi hosts after disabling this setting. If you upgrade vSphere Replication in the future, you may need to temporarily set this value back to true or perform a manual VIB update.

Additional Information

Reference KB:
ESXi hosts report VIB errors after installing VMware vSphere Replication