PowerChute Network Shutdown 4.1 Unable to Shut Down ESXi Host

[minkatec_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 9/23/2015

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Good morning.

I've got a 2-host vSphere HA cluster powered by a Smart UPS X 3000 with AP9631 Network Management Card 2. I'm using the virtual appliance provided by APC, which is the VMA with PCNS pre-installed. I've been through the configuration wizard and I don't see any communication errors, meaning that PCNS sees the vCenter Server and all hosts and VMs in the cluster. 

When a shutdown event occurs, I'm seeing these 2 errors in the error log in PCNS:

Host esxi-2.***.local has successfully entered maintenance mode.

Exit maintenance mode on Host esxi-1.***.local. (esxi-1 holds the vcenter Server appliance and the PCNS VMA.

Shutdown Host failed for Host esxi-2.***.local.

Shutdown Host failed for Host esxi-1.***.local.

Shutting down Host esxi-1.***.local.

So, it tries to shut down esxi-2 first, but fails. Then, it tries to shut down esxi-1, fails, then succeeds. Esxi-1 does shut down successfully, but since that hosts vcenter appliance and APC VMA, esxi-2 never shuts down gracefully.

Any ideas where to begin? Log files I should be looking at?

Thanks.

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Bill on APC forums on 9/23/2015

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Hi,

Look in the PowerChute directory for error.log. It should show why the shutdown failed. In most cases the issue is with permissions. Once PCNS cannot communicate with vCenter Server it cannot command the host down. You should read Application Note 180 starting on page 19 "Shared Local Account for vCenter Server and VMware Hosts. Also, there is a troubleshooting section in the User's Guide starting on page 113.

[minkatec_apc · Accepted solution]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 9/23/2015

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I'm seeing a ton of these recurring errors in error.log:

22-09-15 03:08:02,043 ERROR pool-277-thread-2 com.apcc.m11.components.Shutdowner.Hosts.ESXManagedHost - Failed to take host out of maintenance mode: esxi-2.***.local
22-09-15 03:10:16,558 ERROR pool-278-thread-1 com.apcc.m11.components.Shutdowner.Hosts.ESXManagedHost - Failed to take host out of maintenance mode: esxi-1.***.local

So the PCNS keeps trying to take both hosts out of maintenance mode. Currently, neither host is in maintenance mode. I think we're going to scrap the appliance and install PCNS on a stock VMA appliance and try our luck.