Replications failing with "No connection to VR Server" error on VxRail clusters - vSphere Replication

Products

• VMware Site Recovery Manager

Issue/Introduction

This article outlines the resolution for vSphere Replication failures where services are incorrectly bound to the VxRail management interface instead of the ESXi management interface 

Symptoms:

• Replication status changes to 'Not Active' with the following error message.|

  A replication error occurred at the vSphere Replication Server for replication '<vm-name>'. Details: 'No connection to VR Server for virtual machine <vm-name>  on host <host-fqdn> in cluster VxRail-Virtual-SAN-Cluster-########-####-####-####-############ in VxRail-Datacenter: Unknown'.

• vmkping tests from vmkernel interface tagged for vSphere replication service fail with "Network is unreachable".

  vmkping -I vmk0 -s 1472 ##.##.##.#
  PING ##.##.##.# (##.##.##.#) : 1472 data bytes
  sendto() failed (Network is unreachable)

• /var/run/log/hbr-agent.log on the source ESXi host reports 'Network is unreachable' events.

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MS In(166) hbr-agent-bin[42257746]: [0x000000edc8880700] info: [Proxy [Group: ] -> [##.##.##.#:32032]] Bound to vmk: vmk0 for connection to ##.##.##.#:32032
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MSZ In(166) hbr-agent-bin[42257746]: [0x000000edc85bc700] error: [Proxy [Group: ] -> [##.##.##.#:32032]] Failed to connect to ##.##.##.#:32032. Using nic 'vmk0'. Error: Network is unreachable
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MSZ In(166) hbr-agent-bin[42257746] : [0x000000edc85bc700] error: [Proxy [Group: ] -> [##.##.##.#:32032]] Failed to bind to any of the specified VMKs for connection to ##.##.##.#:32032
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MS In(166) hbr-agent-bin[42257746]: [0x000000edc85bc700] error: [Proxy [Group: ] -> [##.##.##.#:32032]] Failed to connect to broker on ##.##.##.#:32032: Input/output error

Environment

• VMware vSphere Replication 9.x

• VxRail Clusters (all supported versions)

Cause

The root cause is a network connectivity failure preventing production ESXi hosts from communicating with the recovery site vSphere Replication appliance, specifically when replication services are incorrectly bound to the VxRail management vmkernel interface.

Resolution

1. Navigate to the ESXi host in the vSphere Client.

2. Select the Configure tab.

3. Under Networking, select VMkernel adapters.

4. Identify the vmkernel adapter currently used for VxRail Management (e.g., vmk0).

5. Edit the adapter settings and uncheck vSphere Replication services.

6. Ensure replication services (vSphere Replication, vSphere Replication NFC) are enabled exclusively on the ESXi management interface or the dedicated vmkernel interface established for replication traffic isolation.

7. Run the replication health check and reconfigure replication for the affected virtual machines.