Objects not listed in vSphere 5.1 Web Client

After an upgrade from ESX 4.1U2 and vCenter Server 4.1U2 to ESXi 5.1 and vCenter 5.1 – we were keen to try out the new Web Client.

Unfortunately, not all hosts, clusters, vApps, or VM’s were listed in the vSphere 5.1 Web Client. Datacenters appeared as normal – but we had whole clusters simply missing from the Web Client, which was alarming to say the least.

After confirming, and reconfirming that hosts and VM’s were running correctly in the ‘thick’ client it was time to dig a little deeper.

I checked that the permissions on these objects were correct, and confirmed that the clusters and hosts were configured correctly.

Then I created a new cluster in one of our troublesome Datacenters. This appeared correctly in the Web Client. With this success, I decided to remove one of our problem hosts from it’s cluster and add it to this new, test cluster.
Lo and behold the ESXi host appeared in the Web Client.

From there it was a ‘simple’ matter of putting each host into maintenance mode and moving it to this new cluster. This task was made more arduous by the fact that you cannot move vApp’s between clusters, so these were manually re-created in the new cluster.

It would be good to know why this was the case and why it only happened with some clusters.
My guess is there is some compatibility issue with clusters that were created in specific versions of ESX/ESXi. I suspect the troublesome clusters were quite old and may have been created in ESX 3.x

vSphere Replication – VRA vCenter Server connection failed: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.

After following the simple instructions to install VRA 5.1 on vCenter/ESXi 5.1 I ran into an unusual issue.

The .ova deployed normally, but the vSphere Replication add-on did not appear in the Web Client.

I logged onto the web interface of the VRA to find an error:
VRA vCenter Server connection failed: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.

I attempted redeploying the .ova and some troubleshooting, including entering the managed IP for vCenter. (http://communities.vmware.com/message/2131841)

Still no luck.

Instead I logged onto the VRA through SSH and had a look at /var/log/messages and found this:

Jan 10 04:39:45 localhost sudo:     root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/opt/vmware/hms ; USER=vrms ; COMMAND=/opt/vmware/hms/va-util.sh –cmd checkversion –host host.domain.com –port 80 –thumbprint xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx –extkey com.vmware.vcHms –keystore /opt/vmware/hms/security/hms-keystore.jks –keypass vmware –keystorepass vmware –keystorealias jetty –evsurl https://domain.com/vsm/extensionService –evstoken xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx –evsthumbprint xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

It looks like it is using the domain name only to connect to the Extension Virtual Machine url.
Sure enough, the VirtualCenter.FQDN of the server has been entered incorrectly.
I changed this to the correct FQDN, redeployed the .ova and VRA was up and running.

Most likely a configuration issue when installing vCenter, but this was not picked up since it didn’t seem to cause any other noticeable issues with vCenter.