{"id":597,"date":"2026-06-09T19:37:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T17:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/?p=597"},"modified":"2026-06-09T20:03:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T18:03:58","slug":"resetting-a-vsan-witness-appliance-back-to-the-embedded-license","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/resetting-a-vsan-witness-appliance-back-to-the-embedded-license\/","title":{"rendered":"Resetting a vSAN Witness Appliance back to the embedded license"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Disclaimer<\/strong>: This procedure changes the license state of a vSAN Witness Appliance and may temporarily affect the witness configuration in a stretched cluster or 2-node cluster. Make sure you have a maintenance window and verify the health\/state of the cluster before you begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broadcom\/VMware documents that the vSAN Witness Appliance includes an embedded vSphere license and does not require a separate purchased license for the virtual appliance itself. There is also an official KB for cases where the witness shows up with an expired or evaluation license in vCenter after a major upgrade. But if the original embedded key has actually been overwritten, the normal disconnect\/reconnect workaround may not be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently ran into a situation where the embedded license on a vSAN Witness Appliance had been overwritten with a regular ESXi license key.
The witness appliance is supposed to use its built-in embedded license, so this needed to be reverted.
If the witness is still part of a vSAN stretched cluster or 2-node configuration, remove it from that configuration first.
Below is the procedure that worked for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Steps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Disable the stretched cluster \/ witness configuration if the witness is currently in use.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Enable SSH on the witness appliance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Disconnect the witness from vCenter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Log in to the witness host UI and remove the manually assigned license.
    \"\"<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. SSH to the witness appliance and run:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    rm -r \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg\ncp \/etc\/vmware\/.#license.cfg \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg\n\/etc\/init.d\/vpxa restart\nesxcfg-advcfg -s 1 \/VSAN\/HostDeployedFromWitnessOVF\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. Reboot<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Remove the witness host from the vCenter inventory.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Add the witness host back to vCenter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. Accept that it may initially show as using an evaluation license.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    5. Reboot the host once more from vCenter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    6. Disconnect and reconnect the witness host in vCenter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    7. Wait a few minutes and verify that the embedded witness license is back.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    8. Re-add the witness to the stretched cluster \/ 2-node configuration.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      Final note<\/strong>
      If the issue is only that the witness shows as expired\/evaluation in vCenter after an upgrade, try the simpler workaround first: set \/VSAN\/HostDeployedFromWitnessOVF to 1, reboot, wait a few minutes, and disconnect\/reconnect the host in vCenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
      Disclaimer: This procedure changes the license state of a vSAN Witness Appliance and may temporarily affect the witness configuration in a stretched cluster or 2-node cluster. Make sure you have a maintenance window and verify the health\/state of the cluster before you begin. Broadcom\/VMware documents that the vSAN Witness Appliance includes an embedded vSphere license […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,11,8,7,59],"tags":[23,24,26,4,62],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esxi","category-vcenter","category-vsan","category-vsphere","category-vxrail","tag-esxi","tag-vcenter","tag-vsan","tag-vsphere","tag-witness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610,"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmoller.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}