VMware Tools is it fully installed and what happens during a Site Recovery Test Failover?

Here is an example of a failed recovery test recovery plan.

018-09-12T14:03:08.744-03:00 error vmware-dr[00352] [SRM@6876 sub=Recovery ctxID=652c898a opID=5688b3ef-4d94-4134-aa1d-a61e19733b64:f43d:6d7e:a4ba:1a65:823:2d26] [df57903e-fbaa-409e-adfb-024e004a9ff9.failoverOrchJob] IP customization failed for VM vmName01 [vm-318]: (vmodl.fault.SystemError) {
–> faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
–> faultMessage = <unset>,
–> reason = “vix error codes = (1, 2).
–> ”
–> msg = “Received SOAP response fault from [<cs p:000002bfc3b152c0, TCP:dr-vcenter-01:443>]: createTemporaryDirectory
–> A general system error occurred: vix error codes = (1, 2).
–> ”
–> }
–> [context]zKq7AVMEAAgAAIIDkgAPdm13YXJlLWRyAAAKPAJ2bWFjb3JlLmRsbAAB9U0Adm1vbWkuZGxsAAF5nAEC7AsDZHItdm1vbWkuZGxsAAN3EGZkci1yZWNvdmVyeS5kbGwAAztfsgNpOxkENvgFZnVuY3Rpb25hbC5kbGwAAJsgGwD7LxsAiSQhBYdPAk1TVkNSMTIwLmRsbAAFLlECBmSDAEtFUk5FTDMyLkRMTAAHsXAGbnRkbGwuZGxsAA==[/context]
–> [backtrace begin] product: VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, version: 8.1.0, build: build-9569154, tag: vmware-dr, cpu: x86_64, os: windows, buildType: release
–> backtrace[03] vmacore.dll[0x00023C0A]
–> backtrace[04] vmomi.dll[0x00004DF5]
–> backtrace[05] vmomi.dll[0x00019C79]
–> backtrace[06] dr-vmomi.dll[0x00030BEC]
–> backtrace[07] dr-recovery.dll[0x00661077]
–> backtrace[08] dr-recovery.dll[0x00B25F3B]
–> backtrace[09] dr-recovery.dll[0x00193B69]
–> backtrace[10] functional.dll[0x0005F836]
–> backtrace[11] vmacore.dll[0x001B209B]
–> backtrace[12] vmacore.dll[0x001B2FFB]
–> backtrace[13] vmacore.dll[0x00212489]
–> backtrace[14] MSVCR120.dll[0x00024F87]
–> backtrace[15] MSVCR120.dll[0x0002512E]
–> backtrace[16] KERNEL32.DLL[0x00008364]
–> backtrace[17] ntdll.dll[0x000670B1]
–> [backtrace end]

In SRM-UI only “A general system error occurred: vix error codes = (1, 2).” is shown.

VIX is the failback authentication process and it does not always trigger correctly due to timeouts and other issues that might be happening in vCenter at the time of the test failover.

Below is what I expect to see when VMware Authentication service installed.

It should look like this.

Linux

Checking other articles the service does not install by default and during the installer you need to install the extra service.  Here is another article where the .exe gets removed during a VMware tools upgrade !

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2144610

It becomes very complex if we go deeper down such as the thread below.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14888390/the-vmware-authorization-service-is-not-running

The takeaways are SRM is super at checking if VMware Tools is installed correctly and what we should check in similar scenarios.