PCNS 4.2 and vSphere 6.5 some ESXi don't auto shutdown

[BillP]

Greetings all,

We currently run a VMWare enviroment with 3 hosts, connected to 3000 UPS's with management cards.

Of the 3 hosts, the vCenter server and Powerchute appliance run on host 1.

2 weeks ago, we had a power failure.  When I arrived onsite, I noticed the host 1 was powered off, however, host 2 and 3 were still powered on.  I manually shut these down from the host console.  When the hosts were powered back on, host 2 and 3 were in maintenance mode.  Host 1 powered on normally and vCenter and the Powerchute appliance auto powered on as expected.

In the UPS management applicance logs, I observed the messages as attached.

Basically, it appears the UPS was unable to power off host 2 and 3 due to logon issues.  The management software is configured to use a vCenter management account

Reading through other forum posts and specifically this post : http://forums.apc.com/spaces/7/ups-management-devices-powerchute-software/forums/general/12842/pcns-...  

It appears the problem is related to the vCenter server no longer being powered on and therefore the UPS appliance and hosts are unable to verify username/password.  From the link above, the solution to this seems to be to create local accounts on the 3 hosts and on the vcenter appliance.  Then to configure the UPS applicance to use these credentials rather than the vCenter management account.

Does anyone one have experience of doing this and are able to provide instructions or links?  Has anyone else had to do this?

Thanks

Jon

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You need to create an administrator account on the Linux system vCenter is running on and then add the same account to each ESXi host. See Schneider Electric FAQ FA241010 for assistance adding the account to each host. If you need assistance adding the user to Linux the command is adduser and information concerning the command will be found by doing a web search.