VMWare vCenter: "incorrect username or password" when connecting to host

Question

• I have an existing vCenter server (v5.0) with two existing ESXi servers.
• I recently installed ESXi v5.1 on two new servers.
• I configured their hostnames, IPs, DNS, gateway, etc. and both pass their management network test.
• I can also ping them both from my machine by both ip and hostname.
• I can login to the local machines just fine from the console using "root" and a password that is well-known to me.

In my existing vCenter, when I attempt to add the new server to a cluster, I receive the error "A general system error occurred: Timed waiting for vpxa to start" -- and the specific event listed is "cannot connect [myservername]: incorrect user name or password."

• I have tried adding the server with and without a FQDN
• I've tried with a license key and in evaluation mode
• I've tried those steps for both of the new servers I installed ESXi onto.

Not sure where to even begin here. Hoping to avoid a support ticket; thanks in advance for any help you can give!

Solution

You must upgrade vCenter to 5.1 in order to add a host with ESXi 5.1. No vCenter version prior to 5.1 supports ESXi 5.1.

References

• Add an ESXI 5.1 host in vcenter server 5.0 [VMWare Communities]
• VMWare Product Interoperability Matrix [VMWare Compatibility Guide]

Comments

[Ashok Kumawat]

That's definitely the issue. We'll work on that. Thanks; hadn't realized a minor version increment would be such a breaking change. Lesson learned!

[ewwhite]

Same here... I'm finding I need to read the instructions more carefully with new VMWare products.