Error at the Uploading stemcell stage when creating a custom Windows stemcell for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition

Products

• VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When trying to add a custom Windows stemcell to the OpsManager UI, the upload fails.
• You see messages similar to the following in the bosh task for the stemcell upload:

===== 2021-01-14 18:34:37 UTC Finished "/usr/local/bin/bosh --no-color --non-interactive --tty --environment=172.16.100.3 upload-stemcell /var/tempest/stemcells/bosh-stemcell-2019.28.124-vsphere-esxi-windows2019-go_agent.tgz"; Duration: 2s; Exit Status: 1
===== 2021-01-14 18:34:37 UTC Running "/usr/local/bin/bosh --no-color --non-interactive --tty --environment=172.16.100.3 upload-stemcell /var/tempest/stemcells/bosh-stemcell-2019.28.124-vsphere-esxi-windows2019-go_agent.tgz"
Using environment '172.##.###.3' as client 'ops_manager'
  0.00%  54.75% 294.84 MiB/s 100.00% 331.42 MiB/s 0s
Task 1018
Task 1018 | 18:34:38 | Update stemcell: Extracting stemcell archive (00:00:00)
Uploading stemcell file:
 Expected task '1018' to succeed but state is 'error'
Task 1018 | 18:34:38 | Update stemcell: Verifying stemcell manifest (00:00:00)
L Error: Property 'sha1' value (nil) did not match the required type 'String'
Task 1018 | 18:34:38 | Error: Property 'sha1' value (nil) did not match the required type 'String'
Task 1018 Started  Thu Jan 14 18:34:38 UTC 2021
Task 1018 Finished Thu Jan 14 18:34:38 UTC 2021
Task 1018 Duration 00:00:00
Task 1018 error
Exit code 1

 

Environment

VMware PKS 1.x

Resolution

This issue can occur when the custom stemcell was built without containing the vCenter Server certificate(s).

When using the stembuild command, you must use the flag -vcenter-ca-certs '<path-to-vcsa.crt>'

Example stembuild command:

./STEMBUILD-BINARY construct \
  -vm-ip 'TARGET-VM-IP' \
  -vm-username TARGET-USERNAME \
  -vm-password 'TARGET-VM-PASSWORD' \
  -vcenter-url VCENTER-URL \
  -vcenter-username VCENTER-USERNAME \
  -vcenter-password 'VCENTER-PASSWORD' \
  -vm-inventory-path 'INVENTORY-PATH' \
  -vcenter-ca-certs 'CUSTOM-CERTS-PATH'

Additional Information

https://docs.pivotal.io/application-service-windows/2-10/create-vsphere-stemcell-automatically.html#construct-stemcell