Automated Linked Clone Pool (SVI) is one of the most promising desktop provisioning for administrators. Since there are multiple components related to this, misconfiguration in any of those will lead to pool error during or new pool creation or pool maintenance operations like recompose, rebalance and refresh. Here I am going to discuss the most common errors and a possible root cause of which may happen to such environment. I hope this would be helpful as a checklist to the reades for resolving such issues and errors.
01. Linked Clones not joined to Domain
Linked Clones, during provisining first joins to the domain controller. For the the Domain selected at the Guest Customization page of pool creation wizard will be used. Even for sysprep customization same domain name is used for membership and NOT the domain which is mentioned inside the custom specification. If linked clones are not joining to the domain are the issues whcih is most likely to happen
- The DNS Server mentioned in the Parent snapshot is not resolving the Domain name
- For sysprep pool, the DNS configuration mentioned in the Custom Spec is wrong
- The Parent VM settings, Network card is not enabled for "Connect at power on" before taking the snapshot
- Domain is not reachable in the network
- VMware tools are not installed in the Parent VM (specific to Sysprep Customization)
- Enough ports are available in virtual switch for all VMs to connect.
- The domain name is not resolved from Connection Server/vCenter/Composer
02. View Composer Configuration failed
The View composer service typiclaly runs in vCenter Server. vCenter server for a Connection server can be configured at In View Administration - Configuration - Servers. For a given vCenter Server, Composer can be enabled and configured by checking the option"Enable View composer"
This may end up in error because of following reasons
- The credential used to add the vCenter server does not have a local administrator priviledge
- The View composer server is not running
- The view composer service port number is blocked by firewall (Default port number 18443)
03. Errors in Provisioning and Maintenance operations
Provisioning errors can be because of multiple external factors and environmental issues and setup problems to the VI infrastructure.
- An un-healthy cluster is selected for provisioning
- The selected datastore not visible to one or more ESX in the cluster
- vCenter server reconfigured/upgraded without taking view into consideration (refire View upgrade guide)
- Datacenter or vCenter Name changed
- View composer service is not running
- View Composer Service is running but dead due to database connectivity issue (restart the service and verify)
- VCenter server is running but dead due to database connectivity issue (restart the service and verify)
- View Composer or vCenter Server Database error, conflict or stale entries
04. Licensing Errors
VMware recommends KMS activation for Linked clones (Vista or later). View composer will invoke a KMS activation from each linked clone. The parent VM must be set for KMS activation with valid KMS server.
- KMS Server is not reachable on the network where the clones are connected to.
- KMS server name is not resolved by DNS configured for linked clones
- The total no total activation request in KMS server is less than or equal to 25
05. Other Errors
- Unable to add Domain accounts in vCenter Configuration: This is becasue the specified domain is not reachable from the vCenter Server. The DNS entry need tobe verified for vCenter Server.
- View Administrator displays "Unable to connect to View Composer": The View composer service is running but dead due to database issues. Restart the Composer service and verify
