Power Up VMs when Licensing Server is not available
I have run into situation where I have to shutdown all my VMs including the licensing server. Of course when I was ready to power it up the error message "There are not enough licenses installed to perform the operation" In this case you would need to generate Single Host license file from you vmware licensing portal first. Make sure you are including the correct number of CPUs the host is using.
If you have AD authentication you would need to disable. # esxcfg-auth –disablead
Check the AD Firewall # esxcfg-firewall -q activeDirectorKerberos
You should see this message – Service activeDirectorKerberos is blocked.
Go to ESX configuration tab and then licensing. Click on Edit and point to your licensing file and OK. Now you should be able to power up your VM-Licensing server and once it is up point your host to it.