Let’s troubleshoot VMware

Scenario#1: Logon to Virtual Center Server Fails with generic error “Unable to connect to remote server”

1. Isolate if it’s a Networking issue
   1. adfind – Ensure the server name is typed correctly and is a valid Windows server in AD using adfind
   2. ping – Ensure the remote vCenter server is reachable using ping
   3. nslookup – Ensure the DNS entries are correct for the server by doing a nslo0kup
   4. FQDN – use FQDN JIC if some DNS Zones entries issues is around causing the network connectivity
2. Isolate if it’s a Windows server issue
   1. telnet to 443 – Check the connectivity to the vCenter web service to ensure web service at least responding
   2. sc query “vmware virtualcentre server” – Ensure that the VMware virtualcentre server service is running fine
   3. eventvwr – check if there are any vcenter errors in application log or service/system errors in system log
   4. vpxd.exe – check the vpxd log file %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\vmware virtualcentre\Logs\vpxd-#.log”
   5. Attempt to start the service if it’s not running
   6. If service fails with error, correlate it with the log statements in vpxd log files
3. Isolate if it’s a DB connectivity issue
   1. In case if there are any ODBC errors in vpxd log file follow below steps according to the error message “usually authentication errors”
   2. if the DB used is a locally installed SQlExpress version or Access DB, verify that the SQL Server DB service is running fine
   3. If the DB is a remote SQL/Oracle DB, check the reachability to the server
   4. Open the ODBC Manager and very the DSN entry and test the connectivity to the server
   5. In case of authentication issues, try to use
      1. the other login account or
      2. attempt with “Integrated Windows authentication”
   6. If still there is any issue, correlate the issue with SQL authentication/security and DB logging
   7. Once all the issues are isolated and if it’s indeed DB connection issues that got fixed, then attempt to start the “vmware virtualcentre server” service on vCenter server.