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Hi,

I've just tried the same thing, i had a working template used with 6.0 which i then ran against 6.5, it failed as there were some slight changes with the latest release but the cli-installer generated a new json file for me.

• I took this newly generated template, compared against the stock defaults and my own and ran both a --verify-only which succeeded
• I performed a manual install providing the same settings which went into the cli-installer via the json file, and it deployed perfectly fine.
• I then ran it without the --verify-only, which led me to get the same error message as you.

Taking another look into the error messages i can see the below (unfortunately running the deploy again with --verbose doesn't give me anything else to go on):

2016-11-17 13:30:44,838 - vCSACliInstallLogger - INFO - Initial Configuration: Progress: 5% Starting VMware Identity Management Service...

2016-11-17 13:36:03,202 - vCSACliInstallLogger - ERROR - Task failed. Status: ERROR

Progress: 5% Starting VMware Identity Management Service...

Error:

    Problem Id: None

    Component key: idm

    Detail:

        Encountered an internal error.

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "/usr/lib/vmidentity/firstboot/vmidentity-firstboot.py", line 2018, in main

    vmidentityFB.boot()

  File "/usr/lib/vmidentity/firstboot/vmidentity-firstboot.py", line 349, in boot

    self.configureSTS(self.__stsRetryCount, self.__stsRetryInterval)

  File "/usr/lib/vmidentity/firstboot/vmidentity-firstboot.py", line 1479, in configureSTS

    self.startSTSService()

  File "/usr/lib/vmidentity/firstboot/vmidentity-firstboot.py", line 1141, in startSTSService

    returnCode = self.startService(self.__sts_service_name, self.__stsRetryCount * self.__stsRetryInterval)

  File "/usr/lib/vmidentity/firstboot/vmidentity-firstboot.py", line 88, in startService

    return service_start(svc_name, wait_time)

  File "/usr/lib/vmware/site-packages/cis/utils.py", line 784, in service_start

    raise ServiceStartException(svc_name)

ServiceStartException: {

    "resolution": null,

    "detail": [

        {

            "args": [

                "vmware-stsd"

            ],

            "id": "install.ciscommon.service.failstart",

            "localized": "An error occurred while starting service 'vmware-stsd'",

            "translatable": "An error occurred while starting service '%(0)s'"

        }

    ],

    "componentKey": null,

    "problemId": null

}

The generated support bundle gives a little bit more information to go on from a variety of log files:

vmware-identity-sts-6.5.0.1351-4594647########################################

mkdir: cannot create directory .../usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf...: No such file or directory

Failed to create dir /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf

chmod: cannot access '/usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf': No such file or directory

mkdir: cannot create directory .../etc/vmware-sso/keys...: No such file or directory

Failed to create dir /etc/vmware-sso/keys

2016-11-17T09:48:46.714Z   Stderr: hostname: Host name lookup failure

2016-11-17T09:49:51.036Z   Failure setting accounting for vmware-sts-idmd. Err Failed to set unit properties on vmware-sts-idmd.service: Unit vmware-sts-idmd.service is not loaded.

2016-11-17 09:50:20 5776: [ERROR] Request for http://localhost:7080/afd failed after 1 seconds. Status: /usr/bin/curl status. Response: 000. Host: ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

2016-11-17T09:50:09.323Z   Service vmware-stsd does not seem to be registered with vMon. If this is unexpected please make sure your service config is a valid json. Also check vmon logs for warnings.

2016-11-17T09:55:09.651Z   VMware Identity Service bootstrap failed.

2016-11-17T09:55:09.676Z INFO firstbootInfrastructure [Failed] /usr/lib/vmidentity/firstboot/vmidentity-firstboot.py is complete

2016-11-17T09:55:09.677Z WARNING firstbootInfrastructure Bug component info file does not exist

2016-11-17T09:55:09.678Z INFO firstbootInfrastructure First boot is a failure

Stderr = Job for vmware-stsd.service failed because a timeout was exceeded. See "systemctl status vmware-stsd.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

"Command: ['/sbin/service', 'vmware-stsd', 'start']\nStderr: Job for vmware-stsd.service failed because a timeout was exceeded. See \"systemctl status vmware-stsd.service\" and \"journalctl -xe\" for details.\n"

• I then checked the cli template-help and william lams blog but can't see that my json file is missing anything in particular that would be causing this.
• Given that a manual deploy works fine means that the backend / target is working fine and there are no issues with the install media.
• I then found vCenter Server Appliance Upgrade from 6.0 to 6.5 - CareExchange.in which seems to show a similar error message with a resolution related to credentials; given that i'm deploying to a single host which is not already managed by vCenter, not sure how this fits in but alas i reset my host password to match that of those defined in the vcsa os/sso, just in-case there is something odd going on that I'm missing.

I've tried a few other things but the Identity Management service always seems to stall at the 5% marker before it then blows chunks.

I'll take another look later, maybe someone else will see the above and a light bulb moment will go off.