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Defunct cimservera processes seen on VMware ESX 3.5 running hardware management agents

Details

Symptoms:

Unable to log in through SSH to the ESX host.
Multiple defunct (or zombie) CIMserver processes on the ESX host.
ESX Server service console may become unresponsive due to lack of resources.
Unable to log in on the local service console.
HA errors.
3rd party management agents installed.

VMware ESX 3.5 hosts with any hardware monitoring agents installed can create defunct cimservera processes for every failed login made by the hardware management application, which is usually running on another host. Cimservera is an authentication daemon and a defect was discovered that leaves the defunct process on failed login.

Note: This issue is not specific to certain management agents.

This issue was observed to happen on idling VMware ESX hosts with hardware management agents installed and discovered by their corresponding management application. A high number of the defunct processes could result in various symptoms resulting from the VMware ESX service console failing to spawn new processes.

Solution

If you are able to log in to the service console, you can verify this issue using the following command, which might show from a few up to thousands of cimservera defunct processes:

# ps -ef

root 6232 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Sep24 0:00 [cimservera <defunct>]
root 6377 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Sep24 0:00 [cimservera <defunct>]
root 6496 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z Sep24 0:00 [cimservera <defunct>]

In addition, /var/log/messages shows the failed logins:

Nov 17 18:29:32 blr-cpd-018 cimservera[505]: user "root" failed to authenticate
Nov 17 18:29:34 blr-cpd-018 cimservera[506]: user "root" failed to authenticate
Nov 17 18:29:36 blr-cpd-018 cimservera[507]: user "root" failed to authenticate
Nov 17 18:29:39 blr-cpd-018 cimservera[508]: user "root" failed to authenticate

If the failed login attempts are the result of misconfigured credentials in the management application, correct this problem first before proceeding to prevent further degradation.

Restart the Pegasus process to clear the defunct cimservera processes. Use the following command at the service console:

# service pegasus restart

If you are unable to log in to the service console as a result of this problem, there are two alternatives:

Retry logging in. Subsequent login attempts might succeed.
Shutdown all virtual machines running on that host through the guest operating system's remote desktop or equivalent facility, then hard reset the ESX host.

Note: This issue is fixed in VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-200901407-BG: Updates Pegasus (1006657).

Keywords

cimservera defunct process HP Systems Insight Manager

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