VxRail: How to manually register a Virtual Machine (VM) on a specific host when migration is not available

This process should only take under 5 minutes. It is useful when vMotion of a VM is not available because of a host not being manageable by the vCenter. High Availability (HA) can do the job automatically, if configured properly, once the disconnected VM is powered off. Sometimes, such as a host disconnected from vCenter but with VMs still running on it, it is desirable to minimize downtime for a VM compared to waiting on a host to be rebooted and reconnected.
For situations like this, you can use the steps provided in this article. 

 
Steps:

1. Identify a good host in the cluster on which you want the VM to run. 
2. Open a vSphere Web client (web browser to https://<hostIP>) to the good host using root credentials.
3. Browse the vSAN datastore and find the folder with the name of the host. Inside that folder, find the file ending ".vmx".

 *If there are ".vmx~" files present, there is a lock that prevents you from powering up the VM on another host until the lock is cleared. This is expected if the VM is still running.

4. Remotely connect to the VM and shut it down if it is online. If the current host is available through a vSphere thick client, you can shut down the VMs guest OS/power down from there (likewise if vCenter is available, and a VM is on a connected host). You can also use command line from the host the VM is running on to shut it down, as follows:

 *See Broadcom article: https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=1014165

• Command to see if a VM is running on a node and gets the World ID: 

   localcli vm process list

• Command to shut a VM down:   

  localcli vm process kill -t soft -w <worldID>    

  *Using 'soft', as above, is the most graceful shutdown. If that does not work, use 'hard' instead to perform an immediate shutdown. The option 'force' should be used as a last resort. 

5. Once any lock clears, the .vmx~ file should go away. Refresh or browse the datastore again after a few minutes to confirm.
6. Right-click the .vmx file and choose 'Register' or 'Add to inventory', depending on the version.
7. Power on the VM on the good host. If prompted to choose

   'I moved it' and 'I copied it', select 'I MOVED IT'.

8. If moving the VM due to a host being disconnected from vCenter, then once the original host is working properly (usually after rebooting), either migrate the VM back or leave it where it now is and remove the VM from the old host's inventory, if still there.

*** For vCenter appliances (internal PSC and VCSA VMs running on hosts in the cluster), registering a vCenter VM to a different host often does not work properly. The Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS) experiences failures and vCenter must be available to reconnect to the VDS. In these cases, it is best to power off the vCenter VM, reboot the disconnected host where it is running, and power on the VM again.