VM deployed to Azure Stack HCI not connected to Azure Arc

Question

We've deployed Azure Stack HCI 23H2 successfully and are able to deploy VMs to the HCI cluster from the Azure portal. After deployment, most VMs show up nicely in Azure Arc as connected.

However, we have two VMs that do not want to connect to Azure Arc. We've checked the azcmagent installation and verified connectivity (azcmagent.exe check --location).

When manually trying to connect to Arc with the azcmagent, it complains that the Arc resource already exists (it does, but it does not show as connected).

We can connect the VM to Azure Arc under a different name, but then we have two objects under Arc for the same VM (one connected and one not connected). In addition, the objects are different: a VM deployed from Azure to HCI is listed as a "Machine - Azure Arc (Azure Stack HCI)" and a manually connected VM is listed as a "Machine - Azure Arc".

How can we ensure all our VMs deployed to HCI are correctly listed under Arc and show as connected?

(and again, we have most VMs show up correctly, just two delinquents at the moment)

Answer 1

Hi @Bart,

Thank you for your patient.

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform.

We understand from your query that you are experiencing an issue is related to the resource name of the VMs. When you connect a VM to Azure Arc, the Connected Machine agent uses the VM's name as the default resource name. If that name is already taken, the agent will create a number to it to make a unique name.

Here we noticed that VMs deployed from Azure to HCI are listed as "Machine - Azure Arc (Azure Stack HCI)" while manually connected VMs are listed as "Machine - Azure Arc". This might indicate a resource type mismatch. Verify that the Azure Arc resource type is correctly set for the problematic VMs.

• Disconnect the VMs that are not connecting to Azure Arc by using the azcmagent disconnect command. This will remove them from Azure Arc.
• Change the hostname of the VMs that aren't connecting to a unique name.
• Then, reconnect the VMs to Azure Arc using the azcmagent connect command. This time, the Connected Machine agent can use the new hostname as the resource name and connect the VMs to Azure Arc.

Verify guest management is enabled in the Azure portal. Check the VM properties in the Azure portal to ensure that the VM is correctly listed under Azure Arc and shows as connected. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure-stack/hci/manage/manage-arc-virtual-machines#verify-guest-management-is-enabled-in-the-azure-portal

If you have any further queries, do let us know.