VMware Cloud Community
Todd7913
Contributor
Contributor

Can't join host to new vCenter

I have 2 ESXi 6.0 hosts with vSphere Essentials licensing. They have never been in vCenter.

I just installed vCenter 6.7 as an appliance on one of the hosts, ESXi02. I created a Data Center but when I attempt to add the host it gives me an error of, "A general system error occurred: passwd: Permission denied." However, during the process to add the host I enter the root user info and it can see all the VMs on the host. When it opens the option to select a license I get the following error, "Cannot decode the licensed features on the host. Changing its current license might fail or some features might become unavailable."

On the host I see errors that a new vpxuser already exists. That is followed by the same permission denied error above.

To make matters worse, (and maybe a separate issue) I can't change the root password. I've tried from the vSphere Client and SSH and the DCUI. All say permission denied or it doesn't meet the complexity requirements. I've also tried changing the Advanced Security setting, "security.PasswordQualityControl" to allow me to change the password but it didn't help.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

0 Kudos
4 Replies
JamesC42
Contributor
Contributor

Did you get this resolved? I'm getting the exact same issue on a server I had hoped to bring live. Wasn't expecting this roadblock.

0 Kudos
Alex_Romeo
Leadership
Leadership

Hi,

Do you have an Esxi Essential license, what type of license are you using for vCenter 6.7?

pastedImage_0.png

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vsphere/vmw-flyr-vspherecomparekit...

ARomeo

Blog: https://www.aleadmin.it/
0 Kudos
JamesC42
Contributor
Contributor

I couldn't find a solution anywhere so just ended up rebuilding the server. Same media, same process, and I can create accounts on it this time around so I'm presuming I'll be able to join it to the vcenter server this time around as well (I won't be able to test this until this coming weekend).

0 Kudos
scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

If you could not create accounts on your previous installation, that would explain why it could not be added to vCenter Server - there is an account vpxuser which gets created as part of that process.

Now your new installation doesn’t have the account issue I suspect you would be fine adding the host to vCenter Server.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
0 Kudos