PowerChute 4.2 Does not shutdown ESXi hosts

[Anonymous user]

Hello everyone.

I am experiencing issues with Powerchute not shutting down hosts.

I have three Dell poweredge R420 servers running ESXi 6.5 and a smart UPS.

After unplugging the UPS, Powerchute tries to put the hosts in maintenance mode. It works for two of them but the one that hosts the Powerchute vMA and the vCenter appliance gets stuck at 2% and eventually cancels the request.

If I leave the host with said appliances out it successfully shuts down the other two hosts.

The error I get in error.log is:

"com.appc.m11.Shutdowner.Hosts.ESXManagedHost - Failed to take host out of maintenance mode: hostxxx"

"com.appc.Shutdowner.ExecuteSupportedVirtualizationFeatures - startGuestVMShutdown - No shutdown. VM Shutdown Duration is zero for priority: LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH

What could be causing this problem?

[BillP]

Hi,

Would you please provide eventlog.txt, error.log, pcnsconfig.ini files. If you are not comfortable with attaching the files to the post you can contact local support and they will be happy to assist you with this issue.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Bill,

Here are the files you requested.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The error log show a few issue. The first thing you need to correct is permissions. Application Note 180 starting on page 17 discusses login and permissions. I also recommend looking at this thread https://forums.apc.com/spaces/7/ups-management-devices-powerchute-software/forums/general/86195/pcns...

15-08-18 11:22:50,434 ERROR Thread-61 com.apcc.m11.components.WebServer.util.virtualization.VMWareConnection - Unable to log directly into host (NoPermission or InvalidLogin): esxi3.labnet.company.local
15-08-18 11:22:50,435 ERROR Thread-61 com.apcc.m11.components.Shutdowner.Hosts.ESXManagedHost - Unable to establish a connection to shut down the host.
15-08-18 11:22:57,492 ERROR Thread-61 com.apcc.m11.components.WebServer.util.virtualization.VMWareConnection - Unable to log directly into host (NoPermission or InvalidLogin): esxi2.labnet.company.local
15-08-18 11:22:57,492 ERROR Thread-61 com.apcc.m11.components.Shutdowner.Hosts.ESXManagedHost - Unable to establish a connection to shut down the host.
15-08-18 11:23:05,196 ERROR Thread-61 com.apcc.m11.components.WebServer.util.virtualization.VMWareConnection - Unable to log directly into host (NoPermission or InvalidLogin): esxi1.labnet.company.local

[Anonymous user]

The problem was that my default domain in VCSA was set to localos, instead of vsphere.local. That's why I was getting authentication errors.
I created the same user on all hosts including VCSA with the same password as you suggested in the other thread. 
Everything works now. Thank you!