Disabling an ESXi CIM provider when it fails or is unstable

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to disable an individual ESXi CIM provider, when management provider software from VMware or a third party vendor fails or becomes unstable.

Symptoms:

An ESXi CIM provider fails.
An ESXi CIM provider becomes unresponsive or unstable.
The syslog.log file (located at /var/log/) contains entries similar to:

T14:24:11Z prop_of_instances: CIM: child still alive (possibly hung?) with a status of 0

T14:24:11Z sfcbd-watchdog: failed query: /bin/prop_of_instances root/cimv2 vendor_name_HostConnectionManager Status

T14:28:14Z sfcb-CIMXML-Processor[82310]: SFCB restart requested.

T14:29:11Z sfcbd-watchdog: sfcb restart due to restart request

T14:29:11Z sfcbd: Sending TERM signal to sfcbd

T14:29:12Z sfcbd: Sending TERM signal to sfcbd

T14:29:32Z sfcbd: Sending TERM signal to sfcbd

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable

Resolution

To resolve this issue, disable all CIM providers or an individual CIM provider on your host.

To disable all CIM providers on your host, see How to disable the CIM agent on the ESX/ESXi host (1025757).

To disable an individual CIM provider that fails or becomes unstable, perform these steps:

To see the CIM providers installed on your ESXi host:

Log in to the ESXi host as the root user.
Run the command:

esxcli system settings advanced list | grep CIM
You see output similar to:

Path: /UserVars/CIMEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM service
Path: /UserVars/CIMLogLevel
Description: Set the log level of the CIM Service
Path: /UserVars/CIMWatchdogInterval
Description: Set the watchdog polling interval for the CIM Service
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_sfcbrInteropProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_sfcbrInterop provider
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_hdrProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_hdr provider
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_kmoduleProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_kmodule provider
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_viProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_vi provider
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_iodmProviderProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_iodmProvider provider
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_hhrcwrapperProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_hhrcwrapper provider
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_pciProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_pci provider
Path: /UserVars/CIMvmw_swmgtProviderEnabled
Description: Enable or disable the CIM vmw_swmgt provider
Disable a CIM provider by running the command:

esxcli system settings advanced set -o /UserVars/CIMProviderName -i 0

Note: To re-enable the CIM provider, run the command:

esxcli system settings advanced set -o /UserVars/CIMProviderName -i 1
To allow the changes to take effect, restart the SFCBD agent by running the command:

/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog restart

Additional Information

For more information, see the VMware Compatibility Guide for CIM Providers.

How to disable the CIM agent on the ESX/ESXi host
How to disable the CIM agent on the ESX/ESXi host