"An error occured while starting service 'cm'" when installing vCenter Server 6.5

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

Symptoms

• Installing vCenter Server 6.5 fails with the error:
  
  An error occurred while starting service 'cm'
   
• In the %ProgramData%\VMware\vCenterServer\logs\cm\cm.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  Caused by: com.vmware.vim.vmomi.client.exception.VlsiCertificateException: Server certificate chain is not trusted and thumbprint verification is not configured
  at com.vmware.vim.vmomi.client.http.impl.ThumbprintTrustManager.checkServerTrusted(ThumbprintTrustManager.java:183)
  at sun.security.ssl.AbstractTrustManagerWrapper.checkServerTrusted(SSLContextImpl.java:984)
  at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:1496)
  ... 78 more
  Caused by: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path validation failed: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: timestamp check failed
  
  Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x

Cause

This issue occurs when there is a time skew.

Resolution

To resolve this issue:

1. Verify whether the ntpd service is running on the ESXi host where the target VCSA is being deployed.
2. If ntpd service is not running on the ESXi host, start the ntpd service by running this command:
   
   /etc/init.d/ntpd start