VMware products part of .local domains cannot be added for metering in Usage Meter as they cannot be resolved

Products

• VMware Usage Meter

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

Usage Meter will not be able to connect to  products that are part of .local domains to start usage data collection. As a result, supported VMware products part of .local domains cannot be added for metering in the Usage Meter web application.

When we try to resolve a domain with suffix .local in Usage Meter with nslookup, the following error will be thrown:

root@photon-machine [ /home/usagemeter ]# nslookup <HOSTNAME>
Server: <IP>
Address: <IP>#53

** server can't find <HOSTNAME>: SERVFAIL

When we add the IP of one domain controller to nslookup, everything is resolved as it should:

root@photon-machine [ /home/usagemeter ]# nslookup <HOSTNAME>
Server: <IP>
Address: <IP>#53
Name: <HOSTNAME> Address: <IP>

Adding nameserver to /etc/resolv.conf does not help.

Notes:
Usage Meter 9.0 the following error will be thrown:

root@photon-xxxxxxxxxxx  [ / ]# nslookup <HOSTNAME>
Server:         127.0.0.53
Address:        127.0.0.53#53

** server can't find <HOSTNAME>: REFUSED

Environment

VMware vCloud Usage Meter 4.x
VMware vCloud Usage Meter 9.0

Cause

This is a known issue with the Photon OS and it is documented here.

Resolution

Workaround:

Usage Meter 4.x

1. SSH to the Usage Meter appliance as usagemeter.
2. Switch to the root account:

su root

3. Back up resolved.conf  located at /etc/systemd  by running the command:

cp /etc/systemd/resolved.conf /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.bak

4. Open the resolved.conf file.

vi resolved.conf

5. Type i to switch into insert mode and start editing the file.
6. Modify the /etc/systemd/resolved.conf by removing the # in front of the Domains field and entering your domain. See an example below:

7. Save your changes and exit the vi editor.

:wq!

Note: If you don't want to save your changes, enter :q! to exit the editor.

8. Reboot the appliance.

reboot

Usage Meter 9.0

1. SSH to the Usage Meter appliance as usagemeter.
2. Switch to the root account:

su root

3. Add Search Domain using nmctl command:

nmctl set-dns-domains dev eth0 domains xxxx.local

         Note: This example assumes network interface is with name eth0

4. ensure that the search domains are set correctly:

nmctl show-domains

 

Additional Information

The domain name .local is a special-use domain name reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) so that it may not be installed as a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. As such, it is similar to the other special domain names, such as localhost. However, local has since been designated for use in link-local networking by RFC 6762 in applications of multicast DNS (mDNS) and zero-configuration networking (zeroconf) so that DNS service may be established without local installations of the convention. See for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.local.

Microsoft recommends single-label DNS not be used. Check the following information about configuring Windows for domains with single-label DNS names: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=106631.

Also, we do not recommend using unregistered suffixes, such as .local. See for reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2008-R2-and-2008/cc726016(v=ws.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN