VSphere 6.7 Install Takes Entire Hostnode Offline Once It Starts

[compevo]

OVF Tool: Disk progress: 99%

OVF Tool: Transfer Completed

OVF Tool: Powering on VM: Embedded-vCenter-Server-Appliance-

OVF Tool: Task progress: 89%

OVF Tool: Task Completed

OVF Tool: Waiting for IP address...Error: Operation was canceled

Once the above happens the hostnode loses its network and even restarting the network doesn't bring it back.

When manually powering on the appliance in ESXi here's the last thing I see before the hostnode network goes down.

Started Network Time Servce:

[ *** ] (2 of 2) A start job is running for Initial c...metadata service crawler) (21s /no limit)

[a_p_]

Please don't mind me asking, but can you confirm that the IP address that you entered in the wizard for the appliance is not the one of the ESXi host?

André

[compevo]

Thanks for the reply, no, fair question but the IP of the appliance is definitely not the same as specified for the ESXi host.

Any ideas on how and why starting the VCSA appliance breaks the network?  I don't really see any issues when checking the logs either.

[compevo · Accepted solution]

OK in case this helps anyone it could be some weird issue with running VMWare ESXi within KVM.  Keep in mind we enabled nested KVM so technically it should work.

I am not sure why the whole network went down on the ESXi host when the vCenter appliance would startup still.  We also tried changing the NIC model in KVM we tried everything: virtio,e1000,rtl869 etc..with the same result.

We used the exact same .json config file and threw it at some of our baremetal servers and everything worked fine (aside from the fact that if you have strange characters like * or ) in the password then it will cause the appliance install to fail.  It looks like there may be some compatibility issues between KVM and VMWare or a bug in either sides code (I am moreso thinking KVM as the nested part is still said to be experimental).

Hope the above helps someone.

Cheers

Areeb