vCenter Server Appliance 6 HOSTNAME CHANGE

[fcollerette]

Hi everyone,

I'm running into a problem with my VCSA.

We migrated, sucessfully, our VCSA 5.5 to VCSA 6 a little while ago.

We are now in need of changing the FQDN of the VCSA.

So I logged in with the "administrator@vsphere.local" in the Web client and went in Administration -> Deploiement -> System configuration -> Nodes

I went into Networking and got the " com.vmware.appliance.version1.networking.dns.hostname.set: Hostname is used as network identity, set operation is not allowed.

Details: {} "

We are configured with a static IP and our DNS server is correctly setup.

We rebooted the server quite a few times with still the same error.

Thanks for your help.

[javier_dp]

Did the name change feature get into 6.5 release or became supported in any way?

[vmEck]

We still don't have the ability to change the name of a vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller. It is being considered, though. This isn't as easy as it would seem and has many implications to not only vSphere but also anything else that is communicating to vCenter Server and PSCs. But many customers are asking for this and the team is aware of it.

[suhag79]

Hi,

Sorry for replying on OLD post.

we did the fresh install of vCenter appliance 6.5, it is yet to be joined in to the domain. If we change the hostname of appliance and vCenter (option is available to change the hostname), will it break anything ?

change appliance hostname

change vCenter hostname

[daphnissov]

Yes, it will. Since this is a new deployment that you haven't started rolling with, it's highly recommended to just redeploy with the correct name.

[suhag79]

Thanks daphnissov,

While doing fresh installation, it will ask for diff names as below, "VM Name" and "System Name"

VM Name

System Name

I understand, we should not change the system name. So before even starting the installation, we must have to add proper DNS entry for the system-name/hostname...right ? in my case, i was giving some "test" name and it was throwing an resolution error and i had to go with IP address to move on.

can you advice on this .

[daphnissov]

The VM Name is what the name of the VM will be called in inventory. It can be totally unrelated to the System Name. The System Name is the hostname of the OS itself and cannot be changed. You must create forward and reverse DNS records for the System Name before proceeding with the appliance installation.

[jsprinkleISG]

I understand the PNID can be obtained with the following command:

# /usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-pnid --server-name localhost

In the case where the PNID is the IP address, is it then supported to change the appliance hostname?

[daphnissov]

Yes, but you cannot change the IP.