vSphere 6 + vCenter 6 + VSAN 6. No DNS infrastructure. How much trouble am I?

[rnacif]

Hello guys! I hope everybody is doing great!

So... A couple of months ago I deployed a new cluster (4 nodes) with vSphere v6, vCenter appliance v6 and VSAN v6. When I was doing the installation there was no DNS infrastructure in place and nobody had even decided which name space to use. So I used all IP addresses!

Fast forward to now I'm trying to correct this. But I think I screwed up big time. First thing I noticed is that vCenter appliance doesn't permit hostname changing (currently it's localhost.localdom). And now this environment is in production...

So... How much trouble am I? My main concern is that down the road this bites me back....

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks,

Rafael - VMWare total noob

[LucianoPatrão]

Hi

This answer your question:

"Prerequisites

■

To change the IP address of the appliance, verify that the system name of the appliance is an FQDN. If, during the deployment of the appliance, you set an IP address as a system name, you cannot change the IP address after the deployment, because the system name is used as a primary network identifier. "

vSphere 6.0 Documentation Center

[rnacif]

Hi Luciano!

Actually I'm not trying to change the IP address.. I just wanted to change the appliance hostname. The IP is going to be the same...

Thanks!

[LucianoPatrão]

Hi Rafael,

Yes I understood, but I was more pointing in this direction: "...you set an IP address as a system name, you cannot change the IP address after the deployment"

So if you use the IP address for system name, is the same for changing the hostname.

Also here says:

"Changing the Primary Network Identifier (PNID) of the vCenter Server or PSC is currently not supported and will cause the vSphere services to fail to start. If the vCenter Server or PSC has been deployed with an FQDN or IP as the PNID, you will not be able to change this configuration.  To resolve this issue, use one of these options:"

• Revert to a snapshot or backup prior to the IP address or hostname change.

Redeploy the vSphere environment."

So I think the PNID is your IP address and cannot be changed after deployment. Regardless if you are going to change the IP address or not.

But I could be wrong, but this is what I read here.

Also here: https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2124422

We can read:

Cause

This occurs when the VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 is deployed using an IP address. During the initial configuration of the VMware vCenter Server Appliance, the system name is used as the Primary Network Identifier. If the Primary Network Identifier is an IP address, it cannot be changed after deployment.