ESX 2.x Host not responding to VirtualCenter?

It might be because the virtualcenter agent has crashed. Follow the instructions in the article to check or restart them.

If you are using ESX 2.5.1 or earlier, the process you need to check is ccagent. If you are using 2.5.2 or later then you need to check that serverd is running.

To check serverd is running log into the service console and run the following command

ps -ef | grep -i serverd

If the process exists and you just want to restart it, you can grab the PID from the last commands response which is shown below.

root      1011     1  0 Jul2 ?        03:04:11 [vmware-serverd]
root      1201  1017  0 Jul2 ?        00:00:00 [vmware-serverd]
root      1402  1166  0 Jul2 ?        00:00:00 [vmware-serverd]

Once you have the PID, in this case 1011 (use the lowest number) run the following command. Replacing 1011 with your PID

kill -HUP 1011 

If it is not running then you need to start it, though the trick is to restart the httpd daemon. Run the following command.

service httpd.vmware restart

To check ccagent is running log into the service console and run the following command

ps -ef | grep -i ccagent

If the process exists and you just want to restart it, you can grab the PID from the last commands response which is shown below.

root      1011     1  0 Jul2 ?        03:04:11 [vmware-ccagent]
root      1201  1017  0 Jul2 ?        00:00:00 [vmware-ccagent]
root      1402  1166  0 Jul2 ?        00:00:00 [vmware-ccagent]

Once you have the PID, in this case 1011 (use the lowest number) run the following command. Replacing 1011 with your PID

kill -HUP 1011 

If it is not running then you need to start it, though the trick is to restart the httpd daemon. Run the following command.

service httpd.vmware restart