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.

Please change appliance (OS) root password before attempting an update

I’ve been working today to get my home lab updated and came across a vcenter update message while running the Pre-Update.

It appears that I need to change the root password for the OS as it expired.

A quick google search and I found a VMware KB article on how to update the password.

  1. Connect to the vCenter Server Appliance with an SSH session and the root user credentials.
  2. Use the following commands to get to the command prompt:
shell shell.set --enable true
shell

3.Change the root password using passwd command.
4.Verify the root account password has been changed using:chage -l root       
5.Re-attempt the upgrade again.

Thats it! Run the pre-check again and update!

***referenced KB article: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/67414 ***

VMware VDP Advanced 5.5 “Unable to find this VDP in the vCenter inventory”

A quick troubleshooting blog… I recently came across this error when deploying the VMware VDP appliance: “Unable to find this VDP in the vCenter inventory”

I took a look a look at the following log file on the VDP appliance:
/opt/vmware/var/log/vami/vami-ovf.log

The following entries were present:

[info] [process id: 4062] Hostname property is not present, querying and setting hostname.
[info] [process id: 4062] Output:Host name has been set to localhost.localdom

From these entries I realized that I did not setup DNS for the new appliance. After creating  the entries I rebooted the appliance and retried the configuration wizard only to see the same thing.  I’m assuming at this point (and confirmed via the admin guide; page 17) that the appliance deployment relies on the DNS entries. I removed the previous deployment and also provisioned the appliance from the web client on the second pass and was able to configure without issue.