Troubleshooting the sensor

This topic describes common problems that occur with the VMware Virtual Center server sensor and presents solutions for those problems.

Serial number and System ID are blank in the Details panel of the VMware ESX server

Problem
The attributes Serial number and System ID are blank in the Details panel of the VMware ESX server. The attributes for the file system are not discovered.
Solution
Agile Service Manager uses SMASH API to connect directly to the ESX server. Make sure that the connection is open for the port that is specified in the com.collation.discover.vmware.cimport property (by default, it is 5989), or use an anchor instead. ESX must support SMASH API.

Verify that the ESX server and Virtual Center server are included in the discovery scope. Check the credentials, to ensure that the correct permissions are used for accessing the ESX server and Virtual Center server, and run the discovery again. For the L2Interface layer, the sensor only collects the name and hardware addresses.

The sensor fails with a timeout error

Problem
If the Virtual Center server is managing many ESX hosts and virtual computers then the sensor can fail with a timeout error message, An error occurred. Sensor timed out.
Solution
In the etc/collation.properties file, increase the value for the sensor to run, where value is the number of milliseconds allowed for the sensor to run: 
com.collation.discover.agent.VirtualCenterSensor.timeout=value

The default value is 3600000 .

Elements managed by the VMware Virtual Center server are not discovered

Problem
Elements are not discovered on VMware vCenter Server Version 4.1 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. The following error messages exist:
  • The VirtualCenterServer log contains:
    AxisFault
 faultCode: {http://xml.apache.org/axis/}HTTP
 faultSubcode: 
 faultString: (503)Service Unavailable
 faultActor: 
 faultNode: 
 faultDetail: 
	{}:return code:  503
503 Service Unavailable	{http://xml.apache.org/axis/}HttpErrorCode:503
  (503)Service Unavailable )
  • The VMware Virtual Center server vpxd log contains:
    Connection to localhost:8085 failed with error class Vmacore::SystemException
(Normally allowed each socket address (protocol / network address / port) 
is used only once.
  • Running a netstat -ban | findstr 8085 command from the VMware Virtual Center server shows many TCP/IP Ports are left open in a LAST_ACK state.
Solution
The behavior occurs because ephemeral ports, temporary ports that are used for client server communications, are not closed upon use. Ephemeral ports are limited to a range of ports and are only valid for the duration of the connection. In this case, on certain Microsoft Windows operating systems, certain connections leave the ports in a LAST_ACK state on the Virtual Center server. The range of ports can be exhausted after a time and when this situation happens, connectivity can fail until a port is freed.

To prevent this event occurring, go to the Microsoft website at http://support.microsoft.com and search for KB979230. You can then download and install the fix.