Failures occured during prepare of host "x.x.x.x"

[DerrickKarimi]

I am brand new to vmware, and trying to setup the vCloud appliance and follow the evaluation guide.

When I add a host to vCloud director, it fails to prepare the host.  I am adding it by ip-address.  I can ssh from the cVloud machine to the host using the same ip, username, and password.

Some other error text it says:

" - The VirtualCenter operation has taken too long (600.00 seconds). vCloud Director considers this operation timed out."

Others have posted the same error, but there problem was usually dns related, I am using the IPs.

I don't know what logs to look at on the host or on the vCloud machine to get any more specific information about why it is failing.

I see a similar message when I do something like take too long to accept a certificate when I connect a vSphere to a host.  So I thought maybe it was something to do with the two machines secure communications, but I don't know how to get that setup.

I would appreciate any help anyone would care to lend.

[DerrickKarimi]

I found that the errors appear in the "Recent Tasks" part of vcenter.  It was telling me the host could not go into maintenance mode because it was running a VM.  It was running a VM that the eval guide told me to put there (vShield applaince).  I shut down the VM, ran the prepare, and then brought the VM back up.  Now on to my next problem

[JonathanG]

VMWARE:

Please have the doc team add "maintenance mode" to the doc as a requirement for preparing a host

http://pubs.vmware.com/vcd-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vcloud.install.doc_51%2FGUID-F14315CC-B3...

[Michelle_Laveri · Accepted solution]

I've had exactly the same experience. vCD does attempt to put ALL the host in the target Provider vDC into maintanance mode, and doesn't stage them. I think that would be a better approach - so it would put one or more hosts into maint mode, install the agent, and do the next... until the cluster was completed. I ended up doing 2 at time manually...

I guess the ass-umption is that in a production environment - you would have a dedicate "management cluster" where all the "ancilary" or infrastructure VMs would be located - thus the cluster selected to back the Provider vDC would blank... That simple doesn't happen in homelab (like mine) or PoC's because there's generally not enough spare servers around to set this up. But even if you put that to one side - what if a customer was taking an existing vSphere environment, and enabling it for use with vCD - then they would still face the same hurdle. So I'm not really 100% sure if that assumption stacks up, unless its a green-field installation...

Regards

Mike

[DerrickKarimi]

The eval guide I was following instructed that the vSphere Manager VM actually go on the provider Hosts.  I was attempting to only use one host in that pool for just a minimal install to evaluate the vCloud product.  I had wondered/hoped that if I had multiple hosts in that pool it would have magically migrated the running VM between the hosts as each was prepared.  I guess Mike is saying this wouldn't have happened.  At the very least the evaluation guide document should be updated with a set of steps that will address this problem.