vCenter failed to configure network

Well I thought this was fixed in the latest version (7.0U1c) according to the release notes but apparently it wasn’t. If you are like me you are simply trying to deploy the vCenter appliance with standard IPv4 network settings and the setting will not take.

I’ve had various error messages like: ‘IP configuration not allowed‘ and ‘IP configuration failed‘ as well as: “This vCenter Server cannot be used or repaired because a failure was encountered. You need to deploy a new vCenter Server. Failure details”

This should be a relatively easy deployment but this bug definitely throws a wrench into the mix.

Luckily I’ve put some time into troubleshooting this so you don’t have to.

The best way I’ve found to work around this, is to simply just redeploy the appliance and to not fill out any of the networking configuration settings. (Make sure to set a password)

This will allow the appliance to inherit a DHCP address and allow you to complete the setup once deployed. You can also try to manually adjust the DHCP setting on the appliance.

You will first need to get to the shell. In the browser console of the vCenter VCSA press Alt + F1

Then login with root credentials and type: shell

then run /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net

this will allow you to temporarily set DHCP for your appliance to gain access to the setup.

You can reboot the appliance and you should now have an IPv4 address to continue the setup with. Let me know if this helps you or if you found an easier way to fix in the comments below.

Warning 6698 VSS exception code 0x800706be thrown freezing volumes – The remote procedure call failed

When you try to create shadow copies on large volumes that have a small cluster size (less than 4 kilobytes), or if you take snapshots of several very large volumes at the same time, the VSS software provider may use a larger paged pool memory allocation during the shadow copy creation than is required. If there is not sufficient paged pool memory available for the allocation, the shadow copy cannot complete and may cause the loss of all previous shadow copy tasks. Follow this article and apply the fix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833167

Troubleshooting: A checkpoint validation (hfscheck) of server checkpoint data is overdue.

Event ID: 114113

Description:
Checkpoint validations (hfschecks) of server Checkpoints are performed to ensure that checkpoints are valid for disaster recovery needs. A regularly scheduled hfscheck did not take place as scheduled. If hfschecks are not being performed disaster recovery may not be possible.

Remedy:
Check to make sure that checkpoint is configured and enable it if it’s not. Check to make sure checkpoint validation is configured and enable it if it’s not. If checkpoint and validation are enabled and schedule and either no checkpoint was taken or no validation occurred, contact your support center.