VMware Cloud Community
JohnStech
Contributor
Contributor
‎06-18-2015 09:34 AM

Proper procedure for changing domain on Vcenter server guest?

Glad I cloned it....     But never the less.     We are changing out a SBS 2003 domain controller by putting in a new domain / contoller, dis-joining and rejoining every workstation and Vmware guest to the new domain.

Of course when I did Vcenter server the Vcenter server service would no longer start.   It seemed that SSO was the culprit.   So yesterday I went back to the clone I had made before I dis-joined and re-joined the new domain.   Thankfully the clone came back up as expected.

So in short?  What is the Vmware blessed procedure for doing this?

My new plan before I decided to come here and ask:

Change the SSO default identity to the new domain,  then change guest DNS to the new Domain controller, dis-join then rejoin the guest to the domain.  Then cross my fingers?

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

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2 Replies
akarydas2
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎06-18-2015 04:25 PM

Do you have any complicated deployment based on your vcenter like vDS, DRS etc?

If not it would be better to uninstall the vcenter, join new domain and re-install as moving from one domain to the other actually changing the FQDN of the vcenter and there are many changes you need to consider to get the server up and running. In short re-installing will be faster and risk free. I also think is the recommended VMware practice for such change.

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JohnStech
Contributor
Contributor
‎06-19-2015 07:42 AM

Thanks..     I had hoped that was not the answer.   I guess I just did not want to believe that so many complex application servers, workstations, and optical machines could be easily made to work after dis-joining and re-joining without re-installing and then I get to Vcenter and it has to be.   

My organization did not set it up, so I'm not sure what all is going on with / in their Vcenter as we were only hired to get the 2003 SBS domain controller out of there. Any Vmware KB's I found on such a change, state to re-install it on a fresh server load, not the dis-joined and re-joined guest it had been on before.

In short, reloading Vcenter is not as simple as most make it out to be.    It seems Veeam is involved as well on that same guest.  The extra time could mean we actually lose money on this job,  Even if the customer pays for it?    I feel it is money they should of been able to save.

It looks like poor design of the Vcenter server application to me.

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