VMware vCenter Server Appliance Error: VPXD must be stopped to perform this operation

Published by Christian Mohn · Read in about 2 min (251 words)

While deploying a fresh vCenter Server 5.5 Appliance, I ran into an issue getting it configured.

When the appliance is deployed, the first time you log in you get presented with the configuration wizard. The wizard clearly states that if you want to set a static ip, or hostname, you should cancel the wizard, do the network configuration and then re-run the wizard after the fact.

Well, that´s what I did, and it resulted in the following error when trying to create the embedded database:

VC_CFG_RESULT=410(Error: VPXD must be stopped to perform this operation.)

I even tried redeploying the appliance from scratch, but sadly that had the same outcome.

In the end, I was able to complete the configuration by opening an SSH session to the vCenter appliance, and running the following command to stop the vmware-vpxd service mentioned in the error message:

~ # service vmware-vpxd stop

After that I could successfully complete the Setup Wizard. Hopefully this will help someone finding themselves in the same conundrum in the future.

Update: #

Since my setup is a single host, and at the moment of deploying the vCenter Server Appliance there was no existing vCenter in place, I deployed the appliance directly to an ESXi host. When you do this, you do not get the OVF deployment wizard that asks your IP adresses, netmasks etc. I suspect that this is the root cause of this issue, and that this is something you can/will run into of you deploy it in this manner.

Post last updated on January 2, 2024: Add author

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