Error: Unable to retrieve pairs from extension server in vSphere Replication

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Following an upgrade to vSphere Replication 9.0.2.3 in a legacy setup, vSphere Replication Site pairs display as broken or disconnected. Error messages indicating site pairing issues are visible on the Disaster Recovery (DR) client page.
  
  

• The /opt/vmware/hms/logs/hms.log on the vSphere Replication appliance contains connection timeout errors attempting to reach ESXi host IP addresses on port 443.
  
  ERROR com. vmware. hms. hbrsrvuw. HbrsrvuwRegistrarService [hms-main-thread-18] ( .. hms. hbrsrvuw. HbrsrvuwRegistrarService$HostTask) [operationID=bdd4074d-eb63-4fdc-a5da-4######## d-HMSINT-325] | Repair hbrsrvuw from host-4##6 ... FAILED (HTID-04f4d84e-24a3-48b9-a341-5#########1) ; will retry com. vmware. vim.binding.hms . remote. fault. ConnectionFault: Cannot start connection to VR Server https: //10.###.###.8: 443/hbr: https: //10.###.###.8: 443/hbr invocation failed with "org. apache. http. conn. ConnectTimeoutException: Connect to 10.###.###.8:443 [/10.###.###.8] failed: Connect timed out"

• Attempting to ping the ESXi host management IPs from the vSphere Replication appliance SSH console results in 100% packet loss.
  
  root [ /opt/vmware/hms/logs ]# ping 10.###.###.8
PING 10.###.###.8 (10.###.###.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- 10.###.###.8 ping statistics ---
19 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 18411ms

• Validation of the communication to the loopback adapter fails:
  
  $ curl -v telnet://127.0.0.1:8043
*   Trying 127.0.0.1:8043...
* connect to 127.0.0.1 port 8043 from 127.0.0.1 port 55884 failed: Connection refused
* Failed to connect to 127.0.0.1 port 8043 after 0 ms: Could not connect to server
* closing connection #0
curl: (7) Failed to connect to 127.0.0.1 port 8043 after 0 ms: Could not connect to server

Environment

• VMware vSphere Replication 9.x
• VMware vSphere Replication 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESX  9.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

This issue is caused by a network communication failure between the vSphere Replication appliance and the local ESXi host over TCP port 443.
As a result:

• The vSphere Replication Management (HMS) service repeatedly fails to connect to the Host-Based Replication (HBR) service on the ESXi host.
• These continuous connection attempts keep the HMS service busy until the connection completely times out.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, engage your network or security team to open TCP port 443 between the vSphere Replication appliance and the local ESXi host.
Workaround
If you are using a legacy version of vSphere Replication and cannot immediately modify network firewall rules, contact Broadcom Support to request a temporary workaround.