/etc/hosts should exist as with any linux machine....

Why don't you want to add the A record (and PTR record for that matter) to your DNS?

A properly working vSphere environment should have everything correctly registered in DNS to ensure proper running of your environment (even in a homelab). Aside from adding the hosts, you may experience unexpected results if components of your vSphere environment are not registered correctly in DNS. 

I'd say its easier to add these records than not add them for the extra grief it will cause you 

HTH

Please see the following KB if you are looking for the same

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1014030

Regards,

Sachchidanand

Hello,

Please don't take that article as a reference, it doesn't work simply because it's "archaic" and already in relatively recent versions of ESXi the "userdel" command doesn't even exist and in any case when you want to use a "HOST" name it must be resolved somehow and you are quite likely to end up with other messes. I don't want to convince anyone, let's say that I've learned that "it's better to let go" of doing things the way written in that old article.

From my point of view @markey165 has well explained the point of the speech, which (obviously) IMHO by now should no longer be a sort of "news".

Regards,
Ferdinando

If you don't use DNS you will end up with lots of issues with your vCenter and ESXi environment.

Please can you explain why you don't wan tot use DNS.

I have a DNS Server and have esxi and vcenter configure to use it. However, it is a domain controller running as a VM.

If I have to reboot everything or power up (ie after a power outage), I don't want the esxi-vcenter communication to be dependent on a VM that might not be booted up yet. It's not a terrible thing, I can just as easily log into the host and boot the vm during the hypothetical situation. But, it would be nice to have one less dependency during boot up.

It won't be dependent as you would need to login to the hosts to start vCenter anyway, if you have concerns then login to hosts and start your AD/DNS server first and then start vCenter. By trying to avoid DNS your are causing yourself more problems than solving.

What you're trying to do is more to do with DR and business continuity planning. Sounds like you need to figure out a DR plan, that maps out and defines the order in which you restart services after an outage, and identifies any weak points. Also look at how to better protect those core services during such outages (ie via UPS's, physical DNS servers that are separate to your virtualization environment are just a couple of obvious suggestions). Also look at what you can do to remove single points of failure to make your infrastructure more resilient.

Certainly not putting things in DNS to try and resolve these dependency concerns is not the right way to solve this.  

HTH

I see where you're coming from, and what you're trying to do...I get it. If you have to go down that road, I might suggest having BOTH in use, the dns entry and a local entry. You're trying to make it as robust as possible, which is great, but you are sacrificing flexibility and losing out on some degree of recoverability. You need to balance the security/robustness/flexibility in everything.

Remove the ESXi Host from vCenter Once removed, ssh to ESXi and update the FQDN hostname.

To rename a VMware ESXi host:

Log in as root to the console of the ESX host.
Using a text editor, change the name and domain name, if applicable, of the host in these files:
 
/etc/hosts
/etc/sysconfig/network
 
Run this command:

esxcfg-advcfg -s ESXi_FQDN /Misc/hostname
where ESXi_FQDN is the new FQDN hostname for the ESX host.
Reboot the ESX host.
Join the ESX host to VirtualCenter/vCenter Server and clusters.