Exiting hung maintenance mode on an ESX/ESXi host

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This articles describes the procedure to exit a hung maintenance mode from VMware Infrastructure/vSphere Client or from the command line on the console of an ESX/ESXi host.

If the ESX/ESXi host cannot enter maintenance mode, see ESX/ESXi host fails to go into maintenance mode (1036167).

Environment

VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable

Resolution

To determine if the ESX/ESXi host is currently in maintenance mode:

Open a console to the ESX or ESXi host. For more information, see:
Run one of these commands:

ESXi: # vim-cmd /hostsvc/hostsummary | grep inMaintenanceModeESX: # vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/hostsummary | grep inMaintenanceMode

To exit from a hung maintenance mode, try one of these options:

Disconnect the vSphere Client (by closing it) and reconnect to the ESX host to see if the option to exit maintenance mode appears. If this works, there was a problem refreshing the information known to the vSphere Client.
Exit maintenance mode using the vimsh or vim-cmd command.
Open a console to the ESX or ESXi host. For more information, see:
Unable to connect to an ESX host using Secure Shell (SSH) (1003807)
Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677)
Using Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.0 (1017910)

Run one of these commands:

ESXi: # vim-cmd /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exitESX: # vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit
Restart the management agents on the host. For more information, see Restarting the Management agents on an ESX or ESXi Server (1003490).
Check the log file at /var/log/vmware/hostd.log to determine if the hostd management agent is experiencing an issue connecting to the vmware-authd service. For more information, see Location of log files for VMware products (1021806).
Open a console to the ESX or ESXi host. For more information, see:
Unable to connect to an ESX host using Secure Shell (SSH) (1003807)
Tech Support Mode for Emergency Support (1003677)
Using Tech Support Mode in ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.0 (1017910)

Review the /var/log/vmware/hostd log files for messages similar to:

[VpxVmdbCnx] Authd error: 514 Error connecting to hostd-vmdb service instance. [VpxVmdbCnx] Failed to connect to host :902. Check that authd is running correctly (lib/connect error 11)
Restart the vmware-authd and xinetd services using the commands:

# chkconfig vmware-authd off # service xinetd restart # chkconfig --level 3 vmware-authd on # service xinetd restart

If these steps do not resolve the issue, open a support ticket with VMware Support to investigate further. For more information, see Filing a Support Request in Customer Connect (2006985).

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see: