"Detected system clock skew between this node and the vCenter Single Sign-On" when installing vCenter Server 6.0 with external Platform Services Controller

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Installing vCenter Server 6.0 against an external Platform Services Controller(PSC), fails with the error:
  
  Detected system clock skew between this node and the vCenter Single Sign-On: Server returned 'request expired' less than 0 seconds after request was issued, but it shouldn't have expired for at least 600 seconds.
  Unable to add a solution user and administrator user of vCenter Single Sign-On to the Component Manager Administrators group.Ensure that system clock on this node is synchronized with vCenter Single Sign-On.
   
• On rollback of installer, you see the error similar to:
  
  Installation of component VCSServiceManager failed with error code 1603, Check the logs for more details.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the system time on the system hosting the PSC does not match the time of the system where vCenter Server is installed.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, ensure that the system time on the system hosting the PSC matches the system where vCenter Server is installed.

 

Note: If the system time of the operating system where vCenter is being installed is adjusted automatically during the install and vCenter Server is installed on a Virtual Machine, ensure that the ESXi hosting the virtual machine has the correct time as this will be synchronized during the vCenter Server installation.

Additional Information

• Timekeeping best practices for Linux guests
• Disabling Time Synchronization