Error: Enhanced Replication Mapping health check fails on port 32032 in VMware Live Recovery

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Virtual machine replication fails when using Enhanced Replication mode. Site Recovery Manager (SRM) or vSphere Replication reports that the protected site port 32032 is closed or unreachable.

Symptoms:

• Replication status shows "Not Active (RPO Violation)".
• Enhanced Replication Mapping health check fails with: Connect: Input/output error or Connection refused.
• Netcat (nc -zv #### 32032) from source ESXi host returns Connection refused.
• Running esxcli network ip connection list | grep 32032 on the target host shows the process listening on 127.0.0.1 (loopback) instead of the VMkernel IP.

 

Environment

• ESXi 8.0u2 and higher
• vCenter Server 8.x
• vSphere Replication 9.x

Cause

The failure is caused by a dual-layered blockage:

1. Network Layer: Physical firewall rules are blocking TCP port 32032 traffic between site pairs.
2. Service Layer: The hbrsrv process on the target host is bound only to the local loopback interface, preventing it from accepting external replication traffic.

Resolution

1. Verify TCP port 32032 is open on all firewalls between the source and target ESXi hosts.
2. Log in to the ESXi host via SSH.

Restart replication services to force a rebinding to the correct VMkernel interface:

/etc/init.d/hbrsrv restart
/etc/init.d/envoy restart

 

1. Verify the service is listening on the correct IP (0.0.0.0 or specific VMK IP):
   bash

    

   esxcli network ip connection list | grep 32032

2. If the binding issue persists, re-register the vSphere Replication appliance via the VAMI.

Additional Information

• For more information on port requirements, see Port numbers that must be open for vSphere Replication (312798).
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