VCSA Setup stuck at "Starting VMware Appliance Configuration"

[j_edington]

I've got a Dell R540 server running ESXi version 7.0.7 (VMKernel Release Build 20036586).

I'm trying to add the VCenter Server Appliance version 7.0.3-20150588 to the server.

I downloaded and mounted the ISO per the instructions, ran the GUI from my Windows 10 workstation, and Stage 1 seemed to go fine.

However, Stage 2 has been stuck since yesterday. The GUI hung, so I closed it and checked from the web browser—it's still stuck!

The response from the server doesn't offer much insight:

Spoiler

{
  "state": "CONFIG_IN_PROGRESS",
  "progress": {
    "total": 3,
    "completed": 2,
    "message": {
      "id": "install.ciscommon.component.starting",
      "default_message": "Starting VMware Appliance Configuration...",
      "args": [
        "VMware Appliance Configuration"
      ]
    }
  },
  "subtask_order": [
    "rpminstall",
    "validate",
    "firstboot"
  ],
  "subtasks": [
    {
      "key": "rpminstall",
      "value": {
        "progress": {
          "total": 100,
          "completed": 100,
          "message": {
            "id": "com.vmware.vcenter.deploy.task.complete.success",
            "default_message": "Task has completed successfully.",
            "args": []
          }
        },
        "description": {
          "id": "com.vmware.vcenter.deploy.task.description.rpminstall",
          "default_message": "Install required RPMs for the appliance.",
          "args": []
        },
        "service": "",
        "operation": "",
        "status": "SUCCEEDED",
        "cancelable": false,
        "start_time": "2022-08-10T22:20:39.125Z",
        "end_time": "2022-08-10T22:28:52.594Z"
      }
    },
    {
      "key": "validate",
      "value": {
        "progress": {
          "total": 100,
          "completed": 100,
          "message": {
            "id": "com.vmware.vcenter.deploy.task.complete.success",
            "default_message": "Task has completed successfully.",
            "args": []
          }
        },
        "description": {
          "id": "com.vmware.vcenter.deploy.task.description.validate",
          "default_message": "Validate input parameters.",
          "args": []
        },
        "service": "",
        "operation": "",
        "status": "SUCCEEDED",
        "cancelable": false,
        "start_time": "2022-08-11T14:56:49.756Z",
        "end_time": "2022-08-11T14:56:49.758Z"
      }
    },
    {
      "key": "firstboot",
      "value": {
        "progress": {
          "total": 100,
          "completed": 0,
          "message": {
            "id": "install.ciscommon.component.starting",
            "default_message": "Starting VMware Appliance Configuration...",
            "args": [
              "VMware Appliance Configuration"
            ]
          }
        },
        "description": {
          "id": "com.vmware.vcenter.deploy.task.description.firstboot",
          "default_message": "Run firstboot scripts.",
          "args": []
        },
        "service": "",
        "operation": "",
        "status": "RUNNING",
        "cancelable": false,
        "start_time": "2022-08-11T14:56:51.832Z"
      }
    }
  ],
  "description": {
    "id": "com.vmware.vcenter.deploy.task.description.op.install",
    "default_message": "Install vCenter Server appliance.",
    "args": []
  },
  "service": "",
  "operation": "INSTALL",
  "status": "RUNNING",
  "cancelable": false,
  "start_time": "2022-08-10T22:20:39.125Z"
}

Does anyone have insight or advice on this?

[navina]

Can you check the DNS configuration. Looks similar

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/vCenter-Server-Discussions/installation-is-frozen-at-the-step-2-vC...

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/vSphere-Hypervisor-Discussions/installation-is-frozen-at-the-step-...

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-vCenter-Discussions/vcenter-appliance-installation-stuck/td...

[a_p_]

Please verify if the vCSA's IP address properly resolve to the vCSA's FQDN (run e.g. nslookup <vcsa-ip> <dns-server-ip>).
If it doesn't, double check your DNS configuration, i.e. whether forward, and reverse DNS records exist for the vCSA.

André

[j_edington]

There is no DNS on this network. No external resolver access, and no local DNS server. The VCSA is the first node on this closed network only after the ESXi server it resides on.

[a_p_]

With no DNS server in place, you may try to deploy the vCSA by entering its IP-address as the FQDN, so that it doesn't try to resolve the name.

André

[j_edington · Accepted solution]

The solution turned out to be leaving the FQDN field empty. (I was previously putting "vsphere.local" into it, to match the hostname.)

Leaving the field blank causes the FQDN to be autocalculated as hostname-else-IP (depending on rDNS, per the field's hint), and will therefore work on all of the following:

• Statically addressed networks with reverse DNS
• Statically addressed networks without reverse DNS
• Dynamically addressed networks with reverse DNS

(I'm unclear on what the appropriate setting is for networks that use dynamic addressing and do not have reverse DNS. I suspect that, in that case, forward DNS becomes a requirement, and the vCS' resolveable hostname should then be entered as the FQDN, but I cannot confirm this at this time.)

---

It's worth noting that entering the IP directly into the FQDN box (per André's suggestion above) may provide a slight speedup during installation, for networks that use static IP addressing and do not have reverse DNS. I'm unclear on whether doing so will introduce additional complexity during re-addressing, if IPs are changed in the future.

[dklein73]

I did some experimenting, and I would add the following to this:

Even if you have forward AND reverse DNS lookup available, as with AD-integrated DNS, you must use at least 1 of the AD servers in the DNS settings you configure on the appliance.

In my case, I setup a host (A) record in AD-integrated DNS manually, before-hand, as well as the reverse lookup record.

I was able then to successfully enter the FQDN in the wizard, as long as I had an AD server as the primary DNS server entry.

If I tried to use public DNS like google or OpenDNS for the appliance, then the configuration would hang as described by the OP.