ESX4 boots up -- but takes at least 20 minutes before I can log in with vsphere client!

[jasonsomers]

Currenly running three ESX4 servers. Two months ago, lost power and had to restart. Server #1 booted up to the console login without issue. Could NOT log into the server using vshpere client right away. After about twenty minutes, the vsphere client logins began to work.

Though nothing of it until server #3 went down today, and on restart system seemingly came to console ok, but took 40 minutes before I could log into it with vsphere client!!! Is there something silly i am missing here????? I have not tweaked these boxes much from stock, and NO settings have changed since installation. They never used to take this long!

Any ideas???

[DSTAVERT]

Welcome to the forums.

Please post a little more information. Your hardware is? Your storage is? Version is? etc. vCenter? DRS migrating VMs

You will probably want to look through the logs. You can watch realtime logs ALT+F12

[jasonsomers]

Hardware is a vmware approved intel server box. Storage is local on mirrored 1TB HDs... (no SAN here) . vCenter has been installed on a seperate physical machine, but never really used (for other reasons). Nothing fancy installed - no DRS solution other than backing up the disk files onto other systems.

[DSTAVERT]

Not lots to go on here. You will need to look at the logs. Download the logs and start looking for something that might be relevant. Post snippets of things you have questions about.

[jasonsomers]

Any way to see complete logs from vshpere client? no direct access to the console atm

[jasonsomers]

Ok.... was able to putty in.

I have attached logs just before the crash and immediately following the reboot...

(edit: sorry - goofed on the paste from the log on the beforecrash file. Scroll down to the #less messages)

[DSTAVERT]

I would go through the logs for things that spark interest so you can look deeper. Where are you in patches? Where are you in hardware firmware updates?

Use pieces in the log files to use as search terms in the forums.

Caught SBMA Exception will take you to http://communities.vmware.com/message/1044572#1044572 There are references there to slow startup etc.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

I'll post this too, just in case

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1012942

[jasonsomers]

wow... misse dthat kbae article. thanks - that seems to be it.

While setting these up, I specifically did not give them internet access and consequently did not set up DNS.

So, it would appear that I need for each of my esx boxes to be able to resolve each other. Can I just put the other esx hosts in /etc/hosts?

[Troy_Clavell]

Can I just put the other esx hosts in /etc/hosts?

you can. However, having DNS records for each should be considered.

[jasonsomers]

Now, should the vCenter server be pingable by name from the esx servers? I assume the servers should be pingable by name from the vCenter server...

[Troy_Clavell]

Now, should the vCenter server be pingable by name from the esx servers? I assume the servers should be pingable by name from the vCenter server...

Yes. This is why DNS is key.