vSphere 4.1 client and Microsoft Direct Access – Not Playing Together?
Posted on : 03-09-2010 | By : DamianD | In : Direct Access, VMware Virtualisation, vSphere 5, vsphere4.1
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Update News! : a fix is on the cards – see here: http://www.justhyp.com/2011/11/01/vsphere-client-over-microsoft-direct-access-pt2/
Updated: Support have confirmed my suspicion that Direct Access and VI client 4.1 are not compatible. Have passed client logs on to VM which will be provided to the client development team for consideration. Ho Hum 
Just posted this on the VM community forum.
All, since upgrading out internal infrastructure to vSphere 4.1 we have not been able to connect to the guest vm console from either vCenter or direct to ESX using the vSphere 4.1 client. This was working in vSphere 4.0.
The error returned is “the hostname could not be resolved”.
A network trace indicates that although the initial connection to vCenter or the Host is successful (DNS resolves) the connection made within the application to the console fails as a dns call is made to the external dns server ignoring with windows dns resolution order!
Has something changed in the vSphere 4.1 client?
We have enabled IPv6 on the host and registered the AAAA record in DNS bit no improvement. Anyone else seen this?
Heres an extract of the network trace error received
blanked section displays the dns name of the vCenter Server.
Anyone got a clue what is going on here?
Update:
Call progressing with VM support.
They have asked me to setup a test as they do not have a lot of experience of Direct Access.
Test goes as follows
1. install ESXi 4 Update 2 on a Server and Download VI 4.0 client to a direct access laptop that has not had the 4.1 client installed – Completed and connection to the console of a guest works.
2. upgrade client on laptop to 4.1 and test against ESXi 4 update 2 host – testing to happen today when VM support get in touch
3. connect 4.1 client back through to 4.1 host and troubleshoot DNS issue.
Clearly there have been changes made in the Host > client relationship that seem to be forcing a direct DNS lookup rather than utilise the Direct Access server DNS component. Interesting to see where this goes.
I'll update shortly.
I am facing the same exact problem, at first I tought I did some modification to my DA config. But it seems to be since I installed vSphere 4.1. Please let us know as soon as you have some news, I would like to recover my console ability from DA…. Can you give us some details on the vmware call is there a thread on their support forum as well?
Thanks!!!!
Glad someone else has seen this. I'm tracking the issue on the vmware community forums here http://communities.vmware.com/thread/283174?tstart=0
A VMware chap, Graham Daly is tracking the call progress internally. As soon as the call progresses i'll post an update on the thread and on this blog.
Cheers
Damian
I'm running a pure IPv6 test stack which was working fine with ESXi 3.5 / 3.5 client. Since upgrading to esxi 4.1 and the new client I get the same problem. The client is running on Windows 7 in a VM on a Mac, for what it's worth. The only change is the version.
Damian,
I have a SR open with VMware because I have the exact same problem on a pure IPv6 testbed.
Unfortunately, webex doesn't work on IPv6, so they are fussinig over logs too.
My guess is that they screwed something up in the client when they moved from 4.0 to 4.1. (I was previously running ESXi 3.5)
Cheers,
Tim.
Tim, i'm certain of it. Perhaps the change is aligned to the IPv6 support added to vSphere 4. Certainly doesn't make any difference to the problem if IPv6 is configured on the host however.
I have again requested an update from VMware – did request this in November but as yet no update.
I'll keep you posted…
We are having this same issue -did you ever hear back from vmware support on this?
Roche – strangely enough i have had a request to resend logs from VMware today – not sure what they have done with the other 3 lots of logs but there we are. I will update if there is any movement. I don't expect much however as VI client v5 beta shows the same issue.
Damian
[...] vSphere client issue with a blank console view whilst connecting with Microsoft Direct Access (see here) may be soon [...]
Is this fixed in some release now?
Thanks, Magnus
Hi Magnus, Short answer – not sure, as my current employer doesn’t utilise Direct Access. Will check with some colleagues and let you know.