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How to silence VMware vSAN Health Checks

A new feature in vSAN 6.6 is the ability to silence Health Checks. In previous versions, it was already possible to disable alerts that are triggered by health checks. Silencing health checks is one step further and enables you to have a clean vSAN health. Silenced checks are displayed with a green checkmark and are marked as "Skipped".

Especially for home labs, where unsupported hardware is used, this is a great feature.

Currently, it is not possible to silence health checks with the vSphere Web Client and it is not described in the documentation. The feature is available in the RVC or by using the vSAN Management API. This article is focused on the RVC. If you are unfamiliar with RVC, see this article.

Add a check to the silent list:
vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -a <Check ID> <CLUSTER>

Remove a check from the silent list:
vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -r <Check ID> <CLUSTER>

The following Check IDs are available:

Description Check ID
Cloud Health
Controller utility is installed on hostvendortoolpresence
Controller with pass-through and RAID disksmixedmode
Customer experience improvement program (CEIP)vsancloudhealthceipexception
Disks usage on storage controllerdiskusage
Online health connectivityvsancloudhealthconnectionexception
vSAN and VMFS datastores on a Dell H730 controller with the lsi_mr3 drivermixedmodeh730
vSAN configuration for LSI-3108 based controllerh730
vSAN max component sizesmalldiskstest
Cluster
Advanced vSAN configuration in syncadvcfgsync
Deduplication and compression configuration consistencyphysdiskdedupconfig
Deduplication and compression usage healthphysdiskdedupusage
Disk format versionupgradelowerhosts
ESXi vSAN Health service installationhealtheaminstall
Resync operations throttlingresynclimit
Software version compatibilityupgradesoftware
Time is synchronized across hosts and VCtimedrift
vSAN CLOMD livenessclomdliveness
vSAN Disk Balancediskbalance
vSAN Health Service up-to-datehealthversion
vSAN cluster configuration consistencyconsistentconfig
vSphere cluster members match vSAN cluster membersclustermembership
Data
vSAN VM healthvmhealth
vSAN object healthobjecthealth
Encryption
CPU AES-NI is enabled on hostshostcpuaesni
vCenter and all hosts are connected to Key Management Serverskmsconnection
Hardware compatibility
Controller disk group mode is VMware certifiedcontrollerdiskmode
Controller driver is VMware certifiedcontrollerdriver
Controller firmware is VMware certifiedcontrollerfirmware
Controller is VMware certified for ESXi releasecontrollerreleasesupport
Host issues retrieving hardware infohclhostbadstate
SCSI controller is VMware certifiedcontrolleronhcl
vSAN HCL DB Auto Updateautohclupdate
vSAN HCL DB up-to-datehcldbuptodate
Limits
After 1 additional host failurelimit1hf
Current cluster situationlimit0hf
Host component limitnodecomponentlimit
Network
Active multicast connectivity checkmulticastdeepdive
All hosts have a vSAN vmknic configuredvsanvmknic
All hosts have matching multicast settingsmulticastsettings
All hosts have matching subnetsmatchingsubnet
Hosts disconnected from VChostdisconnected
Hosts with connectivity issueshostconnectivity
Multicast assessment based on other checksmulticastsuspected
Network latency checkhostlatencycheck
vMotion: Basic (unicast) connectivity checkvmotionpingsmall
vMotion: MTU check (ping with large packet size)vmotionpinglarge
vSAN cluster partitionclusterpartition
vSAN: Basic (unicast) connectivity checksmallping
vSAN: MTU check (ping with large packet size)largeping
Performance service
All hosts contributing statshostsmissing
Performance data collectioncollection
Performance service statusperfsvcstatus
Stats DB objectstatsdb
Stats DB object conflictsrenameddirs
Stats master electionmasterexist
Verbose modeverbosemode
Physical disk
Component limit healthphysdiskcomplimithealth
Component metadata healthcomponentmetadata
Congestionphysdiskcongestion
Disk capacityphysdiskcapacity
Memory pools (heaps)lsomheap
Memory pools (slabs)lsomslab
Metadata healthphysdiskmetadata
Overall disks healthphysdiskoverall
Physical disk health retrieval issuesphysdiskhostissues
Software state healthphysdisksoftware
Stretched cluster
Invalid preferred fault domain on witness hostwitnesspreferredfaultdomaininvalid
Invalid unicast agenthostwithinvalidunicastagent
No disk claimed on witness hostwitnesswithnodiskmapping
Preferred fault domain unsetwitnesspreferredfaultdomainnotexist
Site latency healthsiteconnectivity
Unexpected number of fault domainsclusterwithouttwodatafaultdomains
Unicast agent configuration inconsistentclusterwithmultipleunicastagents
Unicast agent not configuredhostunicastagentunset
Unsupported host versionhostwithnostretchedclustersupport
Witness host fault domain misconfiguredwitnessfaultdomaininvalid
Witness host not foundclusterwithoutonewitnesshost
Witness host within vCenter clusterwitnessinsidevccluster
vSAN iSCSI target service
Home objectiscsihomeobjectstatustest
Network configurationiscsiservicenetworktest
Service runtime statusiscsiservicerunningtest

 

Example
Silence all HCL related checks in an unsupported home lab configuration. This typically includes the following Check IDs:

  • controllerdiskmode
  • controllerdriver
  • controllerfirmware
  • controllerreleasesupport
  • controlleronhcl
  1. Connect to the vCSA with SSH
  2. Open RVC
    # rvc administrator@vc.virten.lab
  3. Mark the vSAN Cluster.
    This step is not required but allows you to use commands with ~vsan66 as target

    > mark vsan66 vc.virten.lab/Datacenter/computers/vSAN66/
  4. Silence health checks
    > vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -a controllerdiskmode ~vsan66
    Successfully add check "Controller disk group mode is VMware certified" to silent health check list for vSAN66
    > vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -a controllerdriver ~vsan66
    Successfully add check "Controller driver is VMware certified" to silent health check list for vSAN66
    > vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -a controllerfirmware ~vsan66
    Successfully add check "Controller firmware is VMware certified" to silent health check list for vSAN66
    > vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -a controllerreleasesupport ~vsan66
    Successfully add check "Controller is VMware certified for ESXi release" to silent health check list for vSAN66
    > vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -a controlleronhcl ~vsan66
    Successfully add check "SCSI controller is VMware certified" to silent health check list for vSAN66
  5. Verify the status with vsan.health.silent_health_check_status
    > vsan.health.silent_health_check_status ~vsan66
    Silent Status of Cluster vSAN66:
    +----------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+---------------+
    | Health Check                                       | Health Check Id           | Silent Status |
    +----------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+---------------+
    | Hardware compatibility                             |                           |               |
    |   Controller disk group mode is VMware certified   | controllerdiskmode        | Silent        |
    |   Controller driver is VMware certified            | controllerdriver          | Silent        |
    |   Controller firmware is VMware certified          | controllerfirmware        | Silent        |
    |   Controller is VMware certified for ESXi release  | controllerreleasesupport  | Silent        |
    |   Host issues retrieving hardware info             | hclhostbadstate           | Normal        |
    |   SCSI controller is VMware certified              | controlleronhcl           | Silent        |
    |   vSAN HCL DB Auto Update                          | autohclupdate             | Silent        |
    |   vSAN HCL DB up-to-date                           | hcldbuptodate             | Normal        |
    +----------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+---------------+
    

 

4 thoughts on “How to silence VMware vSAN Health Checks”

  1. In order to see if the changes worked, go to the cluster > Monitor > vSAN > Health > Retest and it should turn the previously failed tests green :-)

  2. I have tried the commands (vsan.health.silent....) but in rvc they are not available.

    root@vcenter [ ~ ]# rvc administrator@n00b.local@localhost
    Install the "ffi" gem for better tab completion.
    password:
    0 /
    1 localhost/
    > vsan.health.
    vsan.health.cluster_attach_to_sr vsan.health.cluster_repair_immediately
    vsan.health.cluster_debug_multicast vsan.health.cluster_status
    vsan.health.cluster_load_test_cleanup vsan.health.hcl_update_db
    vsan.health.cluster_load_test_prepare vsan.health.health_check_interval_configure
    vsan.health.cluster_load_test_run vsan.health.health_check_interval_status
    vsan.health.cluster_proxy_configure vsan.health.health_summary
    vsan.health.cluster_proxy_status vsan.health.multicast_speed_test
    vsan.health.cluster_rebalance
    > vsan.health.

    did I miss something?

    1. Your commands were a bit off and either need the vsan cluster path added on to the end or you have to drill down to the vSAN cluster level then run the commands with a "." to tell it to run from where you are.

      More simply put, when you see
      0/
      and 1 localhost

      you need to "cd 1" then do "ls" and select the , then ls again and select then ls again and it should list the then cd to that.

      At that point you need to then follow the formating like this,

      vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -a diskbalance .

      that would turn off disk balance from the vSAN health check. Also the period you see at the end after the space is supposed to be there. That is telling it the vSAN is where we already are (because we drilled down to the vSAN up above)

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