PowerChute does not allow enough time to shutdown all VMs

[Anonymous user]

Hello,

I am able to shutdown one ESX cluster(test with only 3 VMs) using PowerChute 3.0 with no problems.
My issue is when I try to shut down a second cluster it does now allow enough time to shut down all the VMs on it. It seems the ESXi host has a two minute uptime after it receives the shutdown command. The cluster has 20 VMs, but it only gets to shutdown 3 VMs before the ESXi host finally shuts down.

I have played with changinig the order of the ESXi hosts on the vMA box, but I can only consitently shutdown my first cluster.

The cluster has two ESXi host running version 5.0.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

[voidstar_apc]

Try adding time to the "Command File Execution Duration". That should give your VMs a longer time before the UPS shuts down.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for your reply.

Do I have to define a command file to run? Event though I do not need one? It does not let me save any changes to 'The command file needs this much time to complete (seconds): ".

[Anonymous user]

I added 600 seconds to the "The command file needs this much time to complete (seconds)" along with an empty command file. All it did was delay the shutdown of the ESXi host for another 10 minutes, but the host still turned off before shutting down all the VMs.

What am I missing?

This is PowerChute Network Shutdown version 3.0.

[BillP]

Good day Powerchute Guy,

I hope this helps. [Configure PowerChute Network Shutdown to shutdown virtual machines on VMware ESX and ESXi|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10380]

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the reply Kulot, but I have read and configured those settings.

To summarize:
-The ESXi host does receive the shutdown command.
-The VMs start to shutdown, but it only gets to successfully shutdown 3VMs (total of 20) before the ESXi host turns OFF.
-It seems that the ESXi host only has about 2 minutes of up time after it receives the shutdown command..
-The VMs do not have enough time to shutdown before the ESXi host turns OFF.

Is there must be a setting I am missing.

Message was edited by: powerchute_guy

[Anonymous user]

Do the VMware Tools need to be current?

[Anonymous user]

Oooooooooooooops!

All I had to do was increase the "Shutdown Delay" time from 20 seconds to 480 seconds! I should take breaks more often.

Thanks to everyone that responded.

Now on the my second problem. How to shutdown the cluster without having High Availability vMotioning all VMs from one host to the other while PowerChute trys to shut them both down. =(

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

See the following Kbase:

http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11622/kw/HA