vCenter Cloud Gateway CLI Installer Failed with non-utf8 characters "'utf-8' codec can't decode"

Products

• VMware

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
vCenter Cloud Gateway CLI Installer Failed in non-utf8 environment (eg,. Windows Japanese Edition) with the following error
"IP to FQDN resolve failed due to: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x83 in position 0: invalid start byte"
 

vcgw-cli-installer.log
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - INFO - Consuming the installer build:21930389
...
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG - Validating the IP family 'ipv4' with the vCenter hostname 'vcsa80u1c.sample.local'
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG -         Key 'ip_family' is valid.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG -         Key 'mode' is valid.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - INFO - Following are the DNS entry/entries:
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - INFO - ['<IP>']
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG - Checking for the ip resolution
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - ERROR - IP to FQDN resolve failed due to: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x83 in position 0: invalid start byte
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG -         Key 'ip' is invalid.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG - Validating the prefix '16' with IP family 'ipv4', mode 'static'
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG -         Key 'prefix' is valid.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG -         Key 'gateway' is valid.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG -         Key 'system_name' is valid.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG -         Key 'dns_servers' is valid.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - ERROR - Template structure validation failed for template C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\vCGW_on_VC.json.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - ERROR - The value '<IP>' of the key 'ip' in section 'new_vcsa', subsection 'network' is invalid. Correct the value and rerun the script.
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - DEBUG - [VAC] Attempt succeeded: Task
XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX - vCSACliInstallLogger - INFO - ================ [FAILED] Task: StructureValidationTask: Executing Template Structure Validation task execution failed at XX:XX:XX ================

Environment

VMware vSphere+ Cloud Services

Cause

Cloud Gateway Installer uses nslookup command of the client OS, if nslookup returns non-utf8 characters, the CLI installer cannot handle the encoding and failed.
VMware confirmed the issue is reproduced on Windows Server 2022 Japanese edition which returns Shift-JIS characters from nslookup command.

Resolution

This is a known issue. VMware is currently working towards finding a resolution.

Workaround:
If the client OS is Windows OS

Settings -> Language -> Administrative language settings -> Change system locale... ->

Enable "Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support"