The fencing agent fence_vmware_soap errors with the following message"Failed: Unable to obtain correct plug status or plug is not available"

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 (with the High Availability Add Ons)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 (with the High Availability Add Ons)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7 (with the High Availability Add Ons)
  • VMware virtual machine

Issue

  • The fencing agent fence_vmware_soap errors with the following message Failed: Unable to obtain correct plug status or plug is not available
  • When a VMware virtual machine cluster node is fenced it errors with the following message when using fence_vmware_soap fencing agent: fenced[2118]: fence rhel63vm01 dev 0.0 agent fence_vmware_soap result: error from agent
  • Command 'fence_node' will fail with the following message:
[root@rhel63vm02 ~]# fence_node -vv rhel63vm01
fence rhel63vm01 dev 0.0 agent fence_vmware_soap result: error from agent
agent args: ssl=on uuid=564D8BD5-7A07-E6E1-1CF3-6F879A7A00C7 nodename=rhel63vm01 agent=fence_vmware_soap ipaddr=vmware.example.com login=administrator passwd=mypassword ssl=1
fence rhel63vm01 failed

Resolution

The uuid attribute for the fencing agent is case sensitive. The uuid attribute value should be use the exact attribute string including the same cases for the characters. It is recommend that an exact copy of the uuid be used from the listing of the virtual machines managed by VMware with the --action list option.

Root Cause

  • The reason for fence_vmware_soap erroring out is because the uuid attribute value is in lower case characters, whereas the uuid attribute value in the /etc/cluster/cluster.conf was in upper case characters. The uuid attribute value is case sensitive as shown in this example below(the VMware virtual machines names used in this example begin with rhel-6u5).
# fence_vmware_soap --ip vmware.example.com --username administrator --password mypassword -z  --action list | grep rhel-6u5
rhel-6u5-1,564d8bd5-7a07-e6e1-1cf3-6f879a7a00c7
rhel-6u5-2,564d04c9-b784-7dfd-4fd8-a1c0fdcea956
# fence_vmware_soap --ip vmware.example.com --username administrator --password mypassword -z --uuid "564d8bd5-7a07-e6e1-1cf3-6f879a7a00c7" --action status
Status: OFF
# fence_vmware_soap --ip vmware.example.com --username administrator --password mypassword -z --uuid "564D8BD5-7A07-E6E1-1CF3-6F879A7A00C7" --action status
Failed: Unable to obtain correct plug status or plug is not available
  • If any nodes of the cluster has been cloned recently update the new uuid attribute to the cluster configuration file and sync the changes across the cluster.

Diagnostic Steps

  • Verify with the fence_vmware_soap fencing agent that the uuid is exact match(including the case) for what is returned from the listing of all the virtual machines managed by this VMware instance. See Root Cause section for example for the commands to run.
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