Knowledge Base

Restarting the Management agents on ESXi

1. Connect to the console of your ESXi host.
2. Press F2 to customize the system.
3. Log in as root.
4. Use the Up/Down arrows to navigate to Restart Management Agents.
   
   Note: In ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.x, this option is available under Troubleshooting Options.
   
   
5. Press Enter.
6. Press F11 to restart the services.
7. When the service has been restarted, press Enter.
8. Press Esc to log out of the system.

1. Log in to SSH or Local console as root.
2. Run these commands:
   
   /etc/init.d/hostd restart
   /etc/init.d/vpxa restart
   

Note: For more information about restarting the management service on an ESXi host, see Service mgmt-vmware restart may not restart hostd (1005566).

Restarting the Management agents on ESX

To restart the management agents on an ESX host:

1. Log into your ESX host as root from either an SSH session or directly from the console.
2. Run this command:
   
   service mgmt-vmware restart
   
   Caution: Ensure Automatic Startup/Shutdown of virtual machines is disabled before running this command or you risk rebooting the virtual machines. For more information, see Restarting hostd (mgmt-vmware) on ESX hosts restarts hosted virtual machines where virtual machine Startup/Shutdown is enabled (1003312) and Determining whether virtual machines are configured to autostart (1000163).
   
   
3. Press Enter.
4. Run this command:
   
   service vmware-vpxa restart


5. Press Enter.
6. Type logout and press Enter to disconnect from the ESX host.

   If this process is successful, it appears as:

   [root@server]# service mgmt-vmware restart
Stopping VMware ESX Server Management services:
VMware ESX Server Host Agent Watchdog [ OK ]
   VMware ESX Server Host Agent [ OK ]
Starting VMware ESX Server Management services:
VMware ESX Server Host Agent (background) [ OK ]
Availability report startup (background) [ OK ]
[root@server]# service vmware-vpxa restart
Stopping vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]
Starting vmware-vpxa: [ OK ]
[root@server]#


   Note: If there are failures listed:

   • The most common reason for a stopping task to fail is that the service is not started.
   • If a starting task fails for the mgmt-vmware service, see Troubleshooting vmware-hostd service if it fails or stops responding (1002849).
   • If a starting task fails for the vmware-vpxa service, see Troubleshooting the vCenter Server Agent when it does not start (1006128).
     
     

   If starting or stopping the management agent fails try restarting it a second time. If the issue continues to exist after trying the steps in this article:

   • Collect the VMware Support information. For more information, see Collecting diagnostic information for VMware ESX/ESXi using the vSphere Client (653) or, if it is required to collect logs from ESX/ESXi command line, see Collecting diagnostic information for VMware ESX/ESXi using the vm-support command (1010705).
   • File a support request with VMware Support and note this KB Article ID (1003490) in the problem description. For more information, see How to Submit a Support Request.