VCSA 6.5

[plana215]

Had to reinstall vcsa 6.5 as it lost connection with one of my esxi hosts (after adding new vlan for the managment network). Now when running installer it cannot find network on the network configuration portion of the installer. (i.e. it used to have VM Network but now the drop down box is empty).  Appreciate any suggestions.

[virtualg_uk]

Can you login to the ESXi host that you are trying to deploy the VCSA to and send a screenshot of the vSwitch configuration?

The portgroups on this switch are what populates that dropdown. If you don't have any VM Portgroups then there will be nothing on this dropdown.

[a_p_]

Does the installation wizard show a small info icon next to the empty drop-down box?

Maybe the installer cannot find a supported port group.

André

[plana215]

thanks for the quick replies

because of config changes i had to delete the original port groups and create new ones (that along with changing the ip address to the 192.168.200 range for esxi hosts to put management on separate vlan)... this seems to have lost sync with vcsa and I was unable to reconnect host to my datacenter.  after trying for a while i decided to reinstall vcsa and start from scratch and put its ip on the management vlan as well.  this may be my error in the sequence of reconfiguration of the vlan or vcsa or both causing it to loose connectivity but not sure why these port groups don't show up on a fresh install of vcsa?

[plana215]

i misread the request for screen shot-here is the vswitch

[plana215]

not sure here's that info button result (i don't have distributed vswitch)

[virtualg_uk]

What happens if you make a new Virtual Machine PortGroup on that host's switch and run the VCSA installer again?

[plana215]

will give it a try -- as I was getting odd behavior in that the old vcsa VM was powered off and it was giving error that the network adapter was connected to a network that no longer existed-yet its drop down box (when you go to edit virtual machine settings/hardware) also was an empty drop down box.

[plana215]

yet the VMa network is clearly there but the VM cannot see it to link its adapter to.

[plana215]

Thanks Graham your suggestion worked!  Although the NPG3 is the ONLY choice on this menu.

Not sure why none of the other port groups are showing up (in the edit vm settings nor the installer). See below. will try to proceed w/ install.

[virtualg_uk]

I wonder if there is something wrong with the vSwitch?

Can you make a new vSwtitch with Virtual Machine portgroup as a test and see if this shows up?

[plana215]

unfortunately failed during install-here is last portion of log

2017-09-17T20:33:25.242Z - info: output:ERROR

+ <Errors>

+ <Error>

+ <Type>ovftool.system.error</Type>

+ <LocalizedMsg>

+ An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

+ </LocalizedMsg>

+ </Error>

+ </Errors>

2017-09-17T20:33:25.260Z - info: output:RESULT

+ ERROR

2017-09-17T20:33:25.260Z - info: Xml output from ovftool: <data><ManifestValidate valid="true"/><Errors><Error><Type>ovftool.system.error</Type><LocalizedMsg>An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host</LocalizedMsg></Error></Errors></data>

2017-09-17T20:33:25.262Z - error: Ovf Service:vmrefFlag: false

2017-09-17T20:33:25.262Z - info: Cancelling timeout due to error from progress callback

2017-09-17T20:33:25.262Z - error: Progress Controller: [VCSA ERROR] - Progress callback error

2017-09-17T20:33:25.263Z - error: Progress Controller: [VCSA ERROR] - Details An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

2017-09-17T20:33:25.263Z - info: Cancelling the ping timer for session mgmt

2017-09-17T20:33:25.276Z - info: ovfProcess child process exited with code 1

[plana215]

Graham when I try to make a new switch it won't allow me to access my connected vmnic  (only the unconnected ones show up as a choice)

[virtualg_uk]

Can you make it without a nic, This will mean the port wont be on the network but I'm curious to see if it shows up in the VCSA installer or not.

If it does show up, it sounds like there might be a problem with the existing vSwitch

[plana215]

would be difficult as I am running the installer from a laptop (connected wirelessly on a different subnet 192.168.50)

I guess that would require creating another windows VM and running installer from within it? (sorry for the tangent but my experience with vlans is limited)

[virtualg_uk]

I'm not sure I follow.

Basically when you are running the VCSA installer, you are selecting a host to deploy the VCSA onto?

And the problem you have is that when you select a portgroup to connect the VCSA to, none are showing up?

My thought it that the ESXi vSwitch is problematic, so if you create a new vSwitch on the same host, with a VM portgroup - See if this shows up in the installer dropdown.

Then we might have something to work with, ie we might need to migrate your host to a fresh vSwitch as the existing one has some kind of bug?

The problem might be simpler than that, but this is my initial thinking

[plana215]

Let me try to better clarify because I suspect you are correct with the need for a new switch.

I have one server running windows 2012R2 DC/AD/DNS/DHCP in a vm on esxi host (#1)

I have a different esxi host (#2) running vcsa

originally all were on same network/subnet 192.168.50 and everything worked fine.

I was going to implement iscsi so when i began reading about it it suggested separate vlans for managment traffic and iscsi traffic-I started off simple and created vlan 200 for management traffic and switched all esxi hosts management  to the 192.168.200 network via the dcui-they work fine initially but this required reconfiguration of the virtual switches because the VMs and the management network were all on the same switch (VM Network)--This may have been my first mistake but I created two new vswitches (based on recs I had read on this forum) so that I wouldn't loose its connnectivity in vcenter. so the two vswitches were setup for this (one for vm traffic and one for management traffic(on vlan200)).  Then per the post I deleted the VM Network switch.  I had connectivity to host #2 but lost it to host #1 at first intermittently then consistently.  To the point that vcsa could never reconnect to the host that was running the windows server 2012R2 DC--this I could still connect to directly but not the vcsa.  So thats where I decided to power down vcsa and reinstall because most of what I read about changing ip addresses of esxi hosts caused signficant issues and changing the ip of the vcsa was just not possible.  This led to the current issue of not having access to the port groups to reinstall.  sorry for the long post but wanted as much clarity as possible.  I am about ready to just reinstall esxi on the hosts as well.

[virtualg_uk]

Definitely seems to be something strange going on here.

Give the reinstall a try, it will take less time than all the troubleshooting

Let us know how you get on with that.

Good luck!

Graham

[plana215]

I bit the bullet and reinstall esxi on host #2

installer worked and completed stage 1 but couldn't go on to stage 2

my VM network is back but only connected to the trunked nic for vlan 200

If I understand correctly I am having trouble connecting the laptop(installer) which is on 192.168.50 to the management network 192.168.200

because I have only one vmnic for the vswitch and it is connected to the vlan network (subnet 192.168.200) so that there is a conflict for vcsa installer completing.

If this is the case could someone outline how to create theappropriate arrangement in the vswitches since me creating a separate vswitch with separate nic on the 192.168.50 subnet is what started this whole problem.

Thanks.

[plana215]

btw this is the log where installer stalled

2017-09-17T23:34:08.562Z - error: VAMI is NOT accessilbe[25]: https://192.168.200.5:5480/, err: Could not get response for get request from url https://192.168.200.5:5480/: Error: connect ETIMEDOUT 192.168.200.5:5480

2017-09-17T23:34:08.563Z - info: Cancelling the ping timer for session mgmt

2017-09-17T23:50:28.195Z - info: User clicked on the Close button to Close Out the app