vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

[pgoggins]

Has anyone else put a vCenter 5 appliance out there and after installing tried renaming the system? After renaming the system through the web interface and restarting the appliance the vCenter Server installation fails to start with error "Error: VC failed to start". Embedded database connectivity tests still pass. I can still startup the ESXi Servers for syslog, coredump, and autodeploy but not the VC service. Any ideas?

[admin]

Sorry to hear that. One of our engineer will work on this soon.

Best Regards,

Max

[pgoggins]

Ended up logging into the console session as root and manually starting up the vpxd, after is started up successfully the appliance was restarted again and everything came up correctly. Odd but it's working now.

[frodo]

Hello,

Just saw you update the post. Glad to see that everything works well and pls attach detailed logs/steps if you could reproduct this issue.

BR

Yike([e-mail])

[frodo]

Hello there,

Thanks for your reporting, and I tried with following steps:

1. Deploy VCVA

2. configure embedded DB and start vpxd

3. Log into web interface https://<VCVA IP address>:5480, browse to Network->Address configuration page.

4. Change to static configuration and rename hostname to "myvcva"

5. Restart VCVA VM

After that, everything works fine.

So would you pls give some more detailed description about the steps you ever tried to reproduce this issue as well as support bundle log?

Thanks a lot

Yike ([e-mail])

[pgoggins]

After step 5...

6) change hostname from myvca.mydomain.local to myvca2.mydomain.local

7) restart

8) Vpxd failed to start

9) Login to web interface and manual starting of the process failed but through console as root it would startup

10) after starting up via console restart

11) All ok.

FQDN's were used for both the pre and post change. The lab configuration is IPv4 and does not have access to the internet.

[frodo]

I followed you steps and still find no issue, and my details steps are listed here

1) change hostname from myvcva to myvcva.eng.vmware.com on web interface https://<ip>:5480

2) reboot through web interface system->reboot

3) VCVA could start successfully

4) Change hostname from myvcva.eng.vwmare.com to hosta.eng.vmware.com through web interface

5) Stop/start VCVA server on web interface vCenter Server-> Stop vCenter and vCenter Server->Start vCenter

6) All ok.

So would you check with me any difference between your steps?

And if you could reproduce this issue, could you help to collect and attach vc support bundle through tool /usr/lib/vmware-vpx/vc-support.sh?

Thanks

Yike ([e-mail])

[tWiZzLeR]

I had this same exact issue so several times I re-deployed the appliance to try to figure out what was causing the problem.  This last time I only made one change at a time and then rebooted and was able to trace the problem down to the timezone; DON'T CHANGE THE TIMEZONE from the default etc/UTC setting.  If you do the vmware-vpxd service will fail to start after a restart.  I changed the timezone back to etc/UTC and restarted and then everythign was OK again.

Message was edited by: tWiZzLeR

[frodo]

Hi :

Thanks for your reporting.

I think you hit a known issues on the time changing, please see RN http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-esx-vcenter-server-50-release-notes.html

...

On a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded database, restarting vpxd might fail. An error message similar to the following appears in the vpxd.log file:
Alert:false@ /build/mts/release/bora-336896/bora/vpx/vpxd/util/vpxdVdb.cpp:403

This error occurs if the system clock on the vCenter Server Appliance is reset to a time earlier than the time at which the database was created. This results in the database objects created by the vCenter Server Appliance having time stamps that appear to be in the future. This causes queries for database objects to fail.

...

Please make sure whether you hit this trouble also; if yes, we should skip related operation to avoid this DB trouble; change time zone later was a workaround on our test bed.

Hope to get good news and more feedback for our products

Thanks.

Frank Hou ([e-mail]: VMware QE)

[thefrizz]

Hello, I have changed the time zone after configuring vCenter 5 and gaining access it, but once its change I cannot start the vCenter service manually either in the webpage or console.

[imsochobo]

I set timezone through console.

Europe.

Norway (WE are at wintertime now)

it shows:
your local time is now 22:52 (NO its 21:52)

PST is 21:52 (which is what CET should be with daylight saving)

ran timezone thing again through console, then it came up with my correct settings and AD sync worked, and VC started.

didnt have theese issues in first lab run and production.

[tbthreatstop]

This isn't an answer, because resetting the timezone to UTC doesn't let it work.

It is now February, and this is still a problem.

When is there going to be a fix?

[edmandsj]

still a problem. I cannot open vcenter

Error: VC failed to start

I changed time zone and then it broke. changed it back and it wont unbreak.

[imsochobo]

Mine came after timezone change, reboot, timezone again.

Sometimes the darn thing doesnt want to respond to anything i really do before i give it hilariously alot of memory, one wanted 32 gb mem before I could start it, then i stopped all processes and gave it 4 gb (how much do i really need for 3 hosts in a lab ?) anyways, that have been a issue many many times too, try that, give it more memory.

change timezone.

reboot.

change back.

I just created a new vcenter in the lab once more, do it quite often nowdays, and i always get the same problems, and it's seems to be even more memory hungry than a SQL express vcenter 4 install, somehow even though it runs bare metal.

[jarbro]

I was experiencing the same issues above and came across the following kb which resolved my issues. 

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2006812