vRA 6.2 - Provisioning SLES12 template times out at CustomizeVM

[Czernobog]

Hi,

I wanted to update one of my vRA templates with SLES12. I have used the same blueprint for SLES 11, without issues. However after changing the template in the blueprint from SLES 11 to SLES 12, the provisioning process hangs during CustomizeVM.

The System is a vanilla SLES with all standard parameters set during installation, with a static IP. Same as the old 'SLES 11 template. Both use the same Guest Customization, no guest agent is installed.

The provisioning process times out after 2 hours.

Has anyone experience with provisioning this OS version?

Following errors are displayed in the Infrastructure log:

[VMNAME] [CustomizeVM] Customization of VMNAME failed.: Timeout waiting for CustomizeVM completion event.

Error resuming workflow 7f036e05-616b-40d3-b89c-59ef361124f0 before delivering workitem response CustomizeVM b073f11b-6493-486c-9887-b4fc52c58ba1, exception: Workflow with id "7f036e05-616b-40d3-b89c-59ef361124f0" not found in state persistence store.

Can not upgrade workflow 7f036e05-616b-40d3-b89c-59ef361124f0

Error delivering workitem response CustomizeVM b073f11b-6493-486c-9887-b4fc52c58ba1 to workflow 7f036e05-616b-40d3-b89c-59ef361124f0, exception: Can not upgrade workflow 7f036e05-616b-40d3-b89c-59ef361124f0 Inner Exception: Event "ReceiveWorkItemResponse" on interface type "DynamicOps.VMPS.Service.IWorkItemService" for instance id "7f036e05-616b-40d3-b89c-59ef361124f0" cannot be delivered.

Error processing [CustomizeVM], error details: Customization of VMNAME failed.

[qc4vmware]

I'll throw a few things out there.  The first thing I noticed is the operating system is not on the support matrix for vRA https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vrealize-automation-62-support-matrix.pdf .  Second if you are updating the template to a new operating system you need to make sure that in your build profile or in a property of the template you set VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem accordingly.  I'll assume it should be set to sles12_64Guest.  Lastly you'll need to make sure that your underlying vSphere infrastructure can also support SLES12.  You might be able to get this to work but it appears like with the current version of vRA you would not be in a supported configuration.

Paul

[Czernobog]

I admit I did not check the compatibility, since SLES 12 support is already in vSphere 5.5, thought it would be the same with vRA 6.2.2. Does "Error processing [CustomizeVM]" mean it failed while running one of the internal vRA workflows or that it stopped at the vCenter Guest Customization?

When I try to add the VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem = sles12_64Guest protperty to the blueprint, I get an error: "Error processing [CloneVM], error details: Requested value 'sles12_64Guest' was not found." I can clone the template using a vCenter Customization just fine though...

I guess I'm out of luck then and have to wait for VMware to officially patch in SLES 12 support.

[CSvec]

I don't suppose you've figured this one out yet? I'm investigating similar issues that feel permissions related. The same blueprint works for most of my users, but a single user trying to run it will block ALL other executing blueprints at "CustomizeVM" until it eventually times out with the same error. As soon as the user with the bad clone times out all of my clone requests will immediately complete successfully.

In this case they're all Windows 7 VMs and have been working for months. I'm starting to tear the thing apart to find the reason, but I figured I'd see if you'd fixed it already.

[CSvec]

Long story short: in my case, this may have been caused by out of date vmware tools behaving inconsistently.

To follow up on my own investigations, the issue seemed to be tied into how CustomizeVM is called from the IaaS server. The oddity was that the same user calling cloneVM_task() with a customization specification would work fine. But IaaS cloning does not seem to use that optional value and instead calls a CloneVM, waits for completion, and then calls a CustomizeVM. Which is why the clone succeeds but then gets into a hung state waiting for a customization that never appears to trigger.

However, I cannot find anything that implies vmware tools is actually needed by customizeVM_task, or why it would have what appears to be a three hour timeout to determine the task failed. While in that state it also seems to block any further customization tasks from going forward.

[Czernobog]

I haven't investigated further, sadly, SLES12 is still not on the compatibility list for vRA 7. Maybe the list of compatible guest OS's will be expanded with vRA 7.1.

I have not yet deployed vRA 7, maybe, even though not supported, the SLES12 deployment would work. Same as it does under vRa 6.2 with SLES 11 SP4, which is also not on the compatibility list.