"Please set DNS properly in the appliance" error joining Platform Services Controller to an AD Domain

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Attempting to join Platform Services Controller from PSC Client UI (https://psc_fqdn/psc) to Active Directory fails with error similar to:

Failed to join the Active Directory Domain for localhost. Please set DNS properly in the appliance.

 

 

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.x

Cause

This error can be caused by multiple factors, following are some of the Causes :

• Username/password incorrect
• AD user may not have appropriate privileges to join domain
• AD username format may be invalid

Please see resolution section for reviewing logs to narrow down scope.

Resolution

This error can be caused by multiple factors, reviewing PSC Client log will explain the reason for the actual error.
Following log snippets shows two probable scenarios for this error message: 

PSC Client Log -  /var/log/vmware/psc-client/psc-client.log

Scenario 1:

• psc-client log shows VmAfWrongPasswordException & Cause: bad password. Please check the Password when you notice this error message and retry the operation with the right password

[2016-12-06 14:03:17.919] [ERROR] tomcat-http--13 com.vmware.vise.vim.activedirectory.ActiveDirectoryServiceImpl - Error while querying active directory:com.vmware.af.VmAfClientNativeException

[2016-12-06 14:01:46.087] [ERROR] tomcat-http--12 com.vmware.vise.vim.activedirectory.ActiveDirectoryServiceImpl - Failed to join the Active Directory Domain for localhost. Please set DNS properly in the appliance.

com.vmware.af.interop.VmAfWrongPasswordException

at com.vmware.af.interop.VmAfClientAdapterErrorHandler$12.handleError(VmAfClientAdapterErrorHandler.java:158)

at com.vmware.af.interop.VmAfClientAdapterErrorHandler.handleErrorCode(VmAfClientAdapterErrorHandler.java:196)

at com.vmware.af.interop.VmAfClientAdapter.joinAD(VmAfClientAdapter.java:903)

at com.vmware.af.VmAfClient.joinActiveDirectory(VmAfClient.java:141)

at com.vmware.vise.vim.activedirectory.ActiveDirectoryServiceImpl.joinActiveDirectory(ActiveDirectoryServiceImpl.java:40)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

.

Cause: bad password

 

Scenario 2:

• psc-client log shows Cause: VmAfClientNativeException & invalid username format. Please check the Username format when you receive this error message, retry the operation with [email protected] instead of Domain\username

[2016-12-06 14:08:17.919] [ERROR] tomcat-http--26 com.vmware.vise.vim.activedirectory.ActiveDirectoryServiceImpl - Failed to join the Active Directory Domain for localhost. Please set DNS properly in the appliance.

com.vmware.af.VmAfClientNativeException

at com.vmware.af.interop.VmAfClientAdapterErrorHandler.handleErrorCode(VmAfClientAdapterErrorHandler.java:198)

at com.vmware.af.interop.VmAfClientAdapter.joinAD(VmAfClientAdapter.java:903)

at com.vmware.af.VmAfClient.joinActiveDirectory(VmAfClient.java:141)

at com.vmware.vise.vim.activedirectory.ActiveDirectoryServiceImpl.joinActiveDirectory(ActiveDirectoryServiceImpl.java:40)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)

at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)

at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)

.

Cause: invalid username format

 

 

Additional Information

• The option to join Active Directory domain is unavailable in the vSphere Web Client of vCenter Server 6.x Appliance with an External Platform Services Controller
• VMware vCenter Server Appliance hostname and DNS configuration revert after a reboot