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VCSA 6.5 Installation Errors

If like a few of you I rushed off to install the latest VCSA, you may have come across some errors. I attempted multiple installs prior to consulting with Google and then came across this article by Olivier Gosselin.

With my limited French I was able to get enough out of this to spark an idea. The first thing I did was of course try was using an IP as the host name but it still failed. I can only assume this was still down to DNS and the NTP server.

Most of you would think this is not an issue but for me it was as I was starting from nothing. I also thought this was a good time to start my domain again too.

I fired up a new Windows 2016 DC on local disks attached to another server, then I got the bare basics up on including an A record for the VCSA. From here I tried the install again. I pointed the DNS and NTP to this server also using the default SSO settings and it worked!

This has made me want to try and install one more time later this week to see if this is a bug or not. The main thing that puzzles me is what does this mean for completely clean installs for a new site or even customer…. is there still an assumption here you have the DC, DNS and NTP all configured elsewhere. I know some sites I have gone to the DC is set up on the new environment and how can you do this if lets say you have a nice new 3 node VSAN… don’t you need the VCSA to create this in the first place?

 

 

2 Comments

  • Erik

    First off, you do not need a VCSA to setup vSAN. You can do this with PowerCLI or you could bootstrap the VCSA onto a single vSAN node.

    But you still need DNS and NTP before installing the VCSA. Must of our customers are using a solution like Infoblox hardware appliances to provide DNS and NTP for their environment so this is not an issue for them.

    If you do have an green field environment without a hardware solution for DNS and NTP you could set this up on an ESXi host with local storage or a single vSAN node and reconfigure this host after installing the VCSA.

    • geadmin

      Thanks Eric 🙂 I do agree with what you say and I have done this in my lab once before. My thing is would this ever be supported by a VMware perspective in boot strapping and then loading stuff on top. Where do you stand during issues at that point? I also had a few issues when trying to add my other VSAN nodes in and enabling de-dupe and compression with a boot strapped system. I am hoping this is all fixed in 6.5 as I tried to on prior versions. I have had green field sites before where is been day 0 with nothing so its always worth noting for me to come back too as other versions didnt always need it. Would love to know your thoughts!

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