How to Reinstall the VPXA or AAM agent

Reinstalling the vpxa or aam agent without losing the host record from the VMware vCenter Server database

Purpose

This article provides information on updating or reinstalling the vpxa or aam agent without removing the ESX host from vCenter Server. This procedure ensures that the host and virtual machine entries, performance history, and resource pool references in vCenter Server are not lost.

VMware recommends to use this method if you do not want to lose database records.

Note: This process does not impact virtual machines that are running.
Resolution

To update or reinstall the vpxa or aam agent in an ESX\ESXi host without removing it from vCenter Server:

    Disconnect the host from vCenter Server.
    Connect to the ESX\ESXi host using SSH.
    Remove the vpxuser:

 For ESX:

    userdel vpxuser

 For ESXi:

        Log in to ESXi using the vSphere Client.
        Click Local Users & Groups and click Users.
        Right-click vpxuser and click Remove.

        Note: Do not remove the root user for any reason.
    Run these commands to remove the vpxa or aam agent from an  ESX 3.5 or ESX 4.x server:

    For vpx agent:

    /bin/rpm -qa | grep vpx
    /bin/rpm -e output from previous command

    For aam agent:

    /bin/rpm -qa | grep aam

    Note: The output of this command has two entries.

    /bin/rpm -e output from previous command

    Run this command to remove the vpxa or aam agent from an ESX\ESXi server:

    For ESXi 3.5 and ESXi 4.x:

    /opt/vmware/uninstallers/VMware-vpxa-uninstall.sh
    /opt/vmware/uninstallers/VMware-aam-ha-uninstall.sh

    For ESXi 5.0.x, ESXi 5.1.x and ESXi 5.5.x:

    Note: This command uninstalls the HA agent (FDM) from ESXi 5.0 as aam functionality is no longer used for HA on vCenter Server 5.0. For further HA (Fault Domain Manager) troubleshooting steps, see Vmware Doc. In ESXi 5.x, vpxa is now a part of the esxi-base package.

    cp /opt/vmware/uninstallers/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh /tmp
    chmod +x /tmp/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh
    /tmp/VMware-fdm-uninstall.sh

    Reconnect the host to vCenter Server.

Note: When you reconnect the host to vCenter Server, vpxuser is automatically recreated.