Getting this error message when trying to stop the SSH service on newly upgraded ESXi 5 hosts:
Even though the error appears SSH is actually stopped on the host. vCenter never seems to be properly aware of the hosts service status.
- This is happening on BOTH ESXi hosts in the environment.
- The hosts have been rebooted, also removed and re-added to vCenter.
- The service has been stopped/started from the DCUI, powerCLI and vSphere client, none of these seems to remove this error message or stop vCenter reporting the SSH service as running.
After additional testing this looks to be caused by the attempt to disable the SSH firewall rule when the SSH service is stopped. When manually trying to disable the SSH rule on the firewall we also get the above error. When disabling any other rule in the firewall policy, no error is produced. It only seems to be related to SSH and the firewall.
Has anyone else seen this behaviour and have an idea of what is causing it and/or a fix?