Trying to enable HA

[markuk]

Hi,

I am currently doing a POC and I would like to do some testing on HA, My current configuration is 3 ESX4 servers and when I try and enable HA, I get the following message:-

"cmd addnode failed for secondary node: Internal AAM Error - agent could not start.: Unknown HA error"

I have been looking around for some information about this error, but not found much .... any ideas?

Thanks

Mark

[prudhviraj]

Seems like lookup or name resolution issue. Pls check the if the resolve.conf if same on all hosts and if you dont have a DNS server then add the host names in the resolv.conf file of all hosts.

Also check if all hosts are having proper time sync.

[markuk]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply, I have checked the DNS and time in Vcenter and they are all using the same servers, in the same domain and same time. Were is the file kept?

Thanks

MarkUK

[NTurnbull]

Hi, things to check:

1) ESX hosts added to vSphere are addred via their hostnames FQDN and lower case.

2) from each ESX host run the following commands and make sure the hostname comes back in lowercase:

cat /etc/vmware/esx.conf | grep -i hostname

cat /etc/hosts Check that the format is IP FQDN shortname

cat etc/sysconfig/network

hostname -i returns the IP address as the IP address for the service console: esxcfg-vswif -l

hostname returns the FQDN in lowercase

hostname -s returns the hostname short name format

cat /etc/resolv

3) Do you have a /etc/opt/vmware/aam/FT_HOSTS file and if so whats the contents - lowercase?

Thanks,

Neil

[prudhviraj]

u need to check in the esx server. The path of file is /etc/resolv.conf. it should contain the same DNS server name that is in vCenter. Also check the file /etc/hosts and make sure the hostname is as per the format mentioned in the file.

You can test the name lookup by pinging the other esx hosts with their hostnames.

[TobiasKracht]

Check this article in KB - Troubleshooting VMware High Availability (HA)

StarWind Software R&D

[prudhviraj]

Thanks I was actully searching for the link you've provided. It mostly tells all the possible causes for HA issue.