I have 5 ESXi 5 Hypervisor hosts. 3 are dedicated to running several VMs each. 1 host is dedicated to running a VM for vCenter (excess capacity for future growth). ! host is a hot spare.
The vCenter application crashed (may be due to a corrupt OS). In order to recover the vCenter Server (a backup is performed on a daily basis) on that same system, I have to take the hypervisor out of Full Lockdown Mode (or do I?). I haven't tried this yet, but I've always heard that once a system is registered in vCenter (and this host is), that it cannot be even be accessed directly via the vSphere Client.
Is the above true, or can I somehow get to this locked down hypervisor to recreate the VM and/or restore the vCenter Server from a good, recent backup to the original VM?
Thanks.