install of vCenter 6 fails 3/4 way through

[landmore1977]

I have an install of vCenter that I'm working on and it fails part way through. I also see the error:

"Firstboot script execution error.

Could not connect to VMware Directory Service via LDAP. Verify VMware Directory Service is running on the appropriate system and is reachable from this host."

This host is not joined to AD in any way, but I am trying to install it and join it to the SSO domain that I have already setup on another instance of vCenter. I can see that it validates that information successfully, it creates the vCenter machine and then powers it on but then you see the logs say:

CIP Service: [VCSA ERROR] Error fetching File form VM:{"type":"error","statusCode":"PROC_FAIL_PROCESS_ALREAD_IN_MAP","message":"Failed to start file transfer; status: PROC_FAIL_PROCESS_ALREAD_IN_MAP","isFinal":"true","sessionId":"WgQW-erPq-gLMf-ICXZ","requestId":"1374","requestComponentId":"fileTransfer","requestObjectId":"8088-jT99-8gEX-Xsia"}

over and over again.

has anyone seen this kind of thing with vCenter 6?

[landmore1977]

Got some more information on this one. When the failure message comes up during the install through the web interface you can expand the failure message and it's complaining about a previous install in the services controller that I'm pointing to. If I login to vCenter I can see it sitting there in Administration > System Configuration but there doesn't seem to be a way to remove it.

Does anyone know how I can ssh to the service controller to remove the entry?

[landmore1977 · Accepted solution]

Okay, the first error was due to NTP so I had to make sure the hosts had valid time and were syncing with an NTP server in each DC. Then the error was due to the first failed install.

I had to:

-login to vCenter and enable SSH access for the primary vCenter VM

-SSH to the VM and then type 'shell' to get to the command line

-run:  cmsso-util unregister --node-pnid "192.168.1.1" --hostId "vCenter-install" --username administrator@domain.local

(in this case replace the IP with the IP of the failed vCenter install and the --hostId should be the name of the vCenter failed install. Then substitute your admin password for SSO)

- it then prompts you for the password for the SSO administrator and then runs the script to remove the failed node

Once it was done the node was gone and I re-ran the setup to install it.