Since a vCenter has a connection to a single PSC it’s important to understand how to move between PSC’s and deploy new ones when old ones have failed. This article details this mobility and process.
Once installed check for working vCenter
Then login via ssh and check which PSC is being used
Let’s repoint it to psc2.griffiths.local
cmsso-util repoint --repoint-psc psc2.griffiths.local
Now we are pointing to psc2 at site1. In 6.0 you were able to repoint a vCenter to different site PSC’s this is no longer available in 6.5 (Yep no longer possible remember this trying to repoint can cause some really bad stuff in 6.5).
As you can see we have repointed the psc from 1 to 2 at the same site:
So what do you do when all your PSC’s at a site have failed? (Don’t have a single PSC at a site first off..) Or this:
Install a new PSC pointing to a remaining site psc we will use psc3 at site2 to create a new PSC5 at site1. In order to test this I shutdown psc1 and psc2 to simulate failures.
So we are creating:
After the PSC is installed it will replicate with psc3.griffiths.local only. We then can repoint vc1 to psc5 and rebuild missing psc’s at site1. We have to make sure PSC5 was deployed correctly first via visiting it’s webpage:
Now we can repoint the vc to psc5 at site1.
Login to the vCenter web client to test working authentication via psc5
And it’s working
William Lam posted a script to automatically change vCenter to new PSC when a failure is detected and it’s here:
For those who don’t want to read the script it’s very simple it runs on the vCenter appliance and checks the PSC web page for a return code of 200 if it fails 3 times it switches to another PSC. It runs as a automated task every x minutes.
Remove an old PSC
Login to any PSC and type the following command:
cmsso-util unregister –node-pnid OLD_PSC_Name –username administrator@sso_domainname
So to remove psc1.griffiths.local I would type:
cmsso-util unregister –node-pnid psc1.griffiths.local –username administrator@vsphere.local
Don’t forget to clean up those replication partnerships after getting the PSCs back up and running 😉
Adam thanks for reading and improving the article. You are correct make sure you clean up any remaining replications.
If the vCenter Server server is not starting all services, such as inventory and vpxd, can it still repoint to a new PSC?
You will need the services available in order to repoint to a new PSC. So short answer no. You need to resolve the service issue before you can repoint.
Joseph, thank you for the quick response. Your answer makes sense. I have a more detailed follow up question if you don’t mind.
vCenter Server is running fine. However, PSC has an unknown issue that will prevent it from booting at the next reboot. Both the vCenter Server and PSC are shutdown to take snapshots. Power on both, but PSC does not boot. vCenter Server does not start all services because PSC is down. Even if there’s a second PSC, cannot repoint since the vCenter Server services are not all started. Is there anyway out of this scenario?
I am sure there is a way to manually change this in the database to allow vCenter to start. I think it will require a call to VMware support to make the change.