Skyline Health Diagnostics UI is not accessible after deploying Appliance Version 2.0.5-17790475

[#1]

Symptoms

• UI page is not accessible on a newly deployed Skyline Health Diagnostics appliance version 2.0.5 (VMware-Skyline-HealthDiagnostics-Appliance-2.5.0-17790475_OVF10.ova)
• Console login as root user using the deploy time password fails
• Appliance may not accessible over SSH

Diagnosis

The build time root password is expired and first boot fails to initialize the application correctly. 

Solution

Root password need to be changed and a manual run of first boot is required.

Please follow the steps given below to get the Skyline Health Diagnostics appliance correctly setup

1. Deploy Appliance using OVA (VMware-Skyline-HealthDiagnostics-Appliance-2.5.0-17790475_OVF10.ova) via vCenter Server.
2. After the deployment is complete, Power on the Appliance 
3. Wait for about 5 minutes
4. Check if UI is accessible. If yes, you can start using the appliance skipping all further steps here
5. Open the appliance console using Web Console or Remote Console in the vSphere Client
6. In the Appliance console, Login as root user with password vmware
7. You will be asked to change the password
8. Follow the password change steps. (Use vmware as current password)
   1. Please use a temporary password here. Don't use the deploy time password.
   2. This password will be changed again by first boot script to the one your provided during deploy time
9. Once the password is changed, on the command prompt run the following commands
   1. rm -rf /opt/vmware-shd 
   2. sh /etc/vmware/cap/cap-firstboot.sh 
10. After the first boot script is run login to the UI using the Browser
    1. If you see Password Manager Screen, Complete the password change and let the appliance reboot. Please use the passwords used during initial deployment of the appliance as value for the current passwords.
    2. After reboot you should be able to access the regular SHD UI

[brtlvrs]

This should be linked in the installation documentation. (and preferably solved 🙂

[DavidPasek]

I really like the tool. It is very useful especially for dark sites and home labs 😉 

Nevertheless, the deployment issue should be really fixed in next version because it is very user unfriendly.

There is one more issue I have had with appliance deployment. My issue was in defining two name servers delimited by comma during OVA deployment. It was my mistake because in SHD OVA is clearly mentioned "[space-separated] domain name server IPv4 addresses for the appliance." However, correct me if I'm wrong but it is pretty common to use comma separated DNS servers during OVA deployments, therefore, you can experience similar issues of fast typing end-users.

Anyway, the fix is pretty simple.

1. Login to SHD console or via ssh
2. Edit /etc/systemd/network/10-static-en.network and simply changed DNS line to space-separated format ... something like "DNS=192.168.4.5 192.168.4.20"
3. Restarting of services
   root@shd [ ~ ]# systemctl restart systemd-networkd
   root@shd [ ~ ]# systemctl restart systemd-resolved

Hope this helps others.

[ksram]

@DavidPasek @brtlvrs Thanks for the feedback. The deployment issue will be fixed with next release. I will explore the option to update the document. 

For the DNS entry in the UI, we may be able to handle command separated as well as space. Let me check the options we have. 

We will document some of the common appliance management related activities (like changing hostname, IP Address, Time configuration and DNS options). That will help in other cases where user is looking for some guidance. 

-Thanks

Ram