vCenter 4.1 new install - Server service account wrong?!

[Useless1]

Hi,

Installing vCenter 4.1 on a brand new just patched 2008 R2 Enterprise guest. The guest is joined to the domain. As per the manual and best practice I have created a dedicated vCenter user account in Active Directory. This account has been added to the local administrator group of the vcenter server and I have given it the following rights on the vCenter server:

Act as part of the operating system

Log on as a service

I have then logged in with this account and gone to install vCenter server. I select the option to install a local SQL 2005 Express instance. It then prompts me to use the SYSTEM Account or specifiy my own. As I have a dedicated account and it is best practice I opt to do this. The account name is prepopulated and greyed out with just the name of the account, with no domain information. If I then go to enter the password I get the error:

Failed to verify the service account. Error code: [87] : Error message: [The parameter is incorrect.]

I believe this is happening because the account name has no domain info in it, but I am unable to change it (So currently it says <account name> instead of <domain>\<account name>. I have found no kb article from VMware, and also I cannot believe I am the first to see this error?

[jgoff]

Same story here....

Did you find a reason for this?

[bulletprooffool]

Open your Windows Services and amend the Service account that is used for VMWare.

start -> run -> services.msc

[Wickerman14]

Im having the exact same issue. This is a new install so I cannot go into services to amend like the last post mentioned.  Have you managed to fix this ?

[jgoff]

Same issue - unable to add domain account. So I just created a local account and opted for that.

[itsfja]

Hi wonder if you could shed some light on the install . Basically trying to install vcenter 4.1 update onto a new windows 2008 r2 install. We have a seperate SQL 2005 32bit system running on a physical server. Had problems trying to get the DSN connection to work .

Downloaded the 64bit SQL native client. Setup a new DataBase on SQL following the guide lines. I could only connect to to the DB using Windows authentication having tried at first to use SQL authentication.

Both Servers are in the same domain.

So i created a Domain Account for the vcenter service account, placed this into the local admins group on the 2008 server.

This id was also assigned full rights to the SQL DB instance.

I can only connect to the SQL instance if i login to the 2008 server as that domain user assigned to the SQL DB, ist this right ?

To get around the service account being grayed out I created a local id named the same as the Domain user id I logged into the 2008 server.

Questions are do you need to login into the server 2008 to have those credentials passed onto the ODBC connection ?

Should we user SQL or AD authentication ?

[unkn0wnvariable]

Encountered this problem last night whilst upgrading from 4.1 to 4.1 update 1.

For whatever reason the installer doesn't get the domain name when retriving the current username, so because it won't let you change it, it won't authenticate.

Solution we used was to create a local account with the same name as the domain one we use. The installer then completed sucessfully after which we manually changed the service back to using the correct domain account.

[jgoff]

Seems odd, but I also ended up doing the same. Might be another thread but has anyone tried to set permissions w/in vCenter? I thought it was possible to add local and domain accounts?  I can add domain fine, but if selecting "server" I receive the following error:  A general system error occurred.  Error accessing directory.  Call "userdirectory.retreive user groups".

[dergin]

Hi,

I dont know if any of you have managed to work around this problem however I have just come accross this problem. I belive I have found the cause of the problem. So if you happen to name your service account same as your server name it creates this problem. If you change the service account to another name that does not match the server name installation goes through.

Hope this helps

[jgoff]

That may be the reason.  I do have the same name for both.  I'll give that a try.....

Thanks

[jgoff]

That worked!  I renamed the AD account to vc (server being vcenter) and was able to proceed through the install.  Now the vcenter service runs with domain\vc account.

This also stopped the other issue that I was having " user.directory.retrieve user groups".   I can give permissions to either local or domain accounts in vcenter.

[unkn0wnvariable]

I am out of the office today (Friday 4th March).

If your email was regarding an IS matter please resend it to is@sis.tv or call 01908865757, I will deal with all other messages as soon as I can.

Thanks

Oliver Andrews

Infrastructure Support Technician

Information Systems

SiS

Tel: 44 (0) 1908 865238 | Mob: 44 (0) 7921 896086

2 Whitehall Avenue | Kingston | Milton Keynes | MK10 0AX

www.sis.tv

[virtualisator]

Had the same issue while trying to add new users after a fresh install of VC 4.1

Error was: A general system error occured: "error accessing directory"

Call "UserDirectory.RetrieveUserGroups" for object "UserDirectory" on vCenter Server <hostname> failed.

It turned out, that some VMWare Services were running under .\Administrator account, while the rest was running as "Local System"

After changing all services to "Local System" I was able to add users.

[rajivpai06]

I am Trying to create a VIRTUAL LAB

I am getting a error during the installation of VMware Vcenter Server .

When i enter the PASSWORD in VCENTER SERVER SERVICE

I get the error

“Failed to verify the service account.Error code:[87]:Error message:[The parameter is incorrect.]

Need Help!!!!!