What
One of my ESXi hosts is marked with a critical warning sign that I couldn't get rid of it. This warning sign in specif is due to a triggered alarm: Host hardware system board status. And the Severity was Critical.
This ESXi host was repurposed out of an old storage system and I knew this warning sign and the message was valid since this server had some issues with the power supply. However, I dislike seeing any kind of (red) warning signs on my dashboard and not being able to fix it. This one always coming back, no matter if you check it with an Acknowledge or Reset to Green.
How
First off, the action needs to be taken on the VCSA, not in the ESXi host.
- Select Configure under your VCSA. Expand More and select Alarm Definitions.
- Search for the Host hardware system board status alarm (or the one you desire to disable) and click on Disable.
- Once the alarm is disabled, you will now see your ESXi host (from the left panel) without the red warning sign, and this time, it won’t come back.
stupid. what if a REAL alarm comes up?
Good point. First off, this is a cosmetic solution for a test environment with a known issue. For certain environments, admins also could disable/enable alarms to quick test specific situations. Ultimately, this is just a walk around on the alarms, which I don't consider stupid, since VMware is giving the option, anyway.
Thank you Juan,
It is helpful, in my case a hardware bug generate an alarm on the esxi hosts and red mark on the host icon is shown. Because I know the source of the alarm I can disable it until the upgrade of the firmware will be done and fix the hardware bug, after that I can unable the alarm again for testing the new status.
Also, after disabling the alarm the red mark on the host icon disapear and the host and cluster inventory is clean, and you can see other new warning and error if it happens.
[…] Disable an Alarm: Host hardware system board status […]