"An error occurred while invoking external command: '%(0)s'" when deploying vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Stage 2 deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 fails at 5% when attempting to start the vmware-stsd service.
• No FQDN was supplied during Stage 1 of the install, resulting in a hostname of localhost.localdom.
  
  Stderr = Job for vmware-stsd.service failed because a timeout was exceeded. See "systemctl status vmware-stsd.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
   
• Running the commands systemctl status vmware-stsd.service and journalctl -xe on the vCenter Server Appliance report this error:
  
  Nov 17 21:12:13 localhost.localdom systemd[1]: vmware-stsd.service: Failed with result 'timeout'
   
• The following error is displayed in the GUI of the installer:
  
  

Cause

This issue occurs due to a failure when attempting to resolve the hostname through IPv6 with no FQDN entered. When this step fails the installer fails attempting to fall back to IPv4 due to a timeout for the completion of the step.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 b, available at VMware Downloads.

Workaround:

To workaround this issue if you do not want to upgrade, use one of these options:

• Install with an FQDN which is resolvable through DNS.
• Manually add localhost.localdom localhost to the /etc/hosts file on the Source vCenter Server Appliance. After deploying (Stage 1) the vCenter Server Appliance, open a console to the Appliance virtual machine.
   
  1. Press Alt+F1 and log in with root credentials.
  2. Run this command to enable SSH:
     
     ssh.set --enabled true
      
  3. Run this command to verify SSH is enabled:
     
     ssh.get
     
     For example:
     
     ssh.get
     Enabled: True
      
  4. Connect to the vCenter Server Appliance with an SSH session and root credentials.
  5. In the etc/hosts file, add ::1 localhost.localdom localhost above #VAMI_EDIT_END.
  6. Continue with Stage 2 of the deployment.

Additional Information

For more information, see:

• Upgrading the vCenter Server to 6.5 fails with the error: An error occurred while invoking external command : 'Command: ['/usr/sbin/vpxd', '-L'] Stderr: (2147547)
• 「外部コマンド'%(0)s' を呼び出すときにエラーが発生しました (An error occurred while invoking external command: '%(0)s')」というメッセージが vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 のデプロイ時に表示される
• 在部署 vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 时显示“调用外部命令：‘%(0)s’时发生错误”(An error occurred while invoking external command: '%(0)s')