Upgrading from vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 to 6.0 fails with a DNS error

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

Upgrading vCenter Server Appliance from 5.5 to 6.0 fails with the error:

DNS server maps host name vCenter to address(es) ; <<>> DiG 9.9.6-P1 <<>> vCenter +short,;; global options: +cmd,;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached which seems to be not local ip address。

Please either update appliance /etc/hosts file to properly access DNS servers or update appliance DNS servers with the proper host name mapping. To check if DNS has record about local host name, please execute `dig vCenter +short` locally on the appliance, or `nslookup vCenter` on a windows machine。

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.5.x

Cause

This issue is occurs when vCenter Server Appliance is attempting to resolve the vCenter Server hostname to a DNS server. Access to a DNS server is required for installing or upgrading to vCenter Server Appliance.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, confirm that the DNS server is functional and can be accessed by vCenter Server Appliance.

To test the connectivity, use one of the option:

• From a Windows machine, run the nslookup vCenter_name command.
• From the vCenter Server Appliance, run the shell command dig vCenter +short.

To run the dig command on the vCenter Server Appliance:

1. Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance through SSH.
2. Run this command to enable access the Bash shell:
   
   shell.set --enabled true
   
   
3. Type shell and press Enter.
4. Run the command dig vCenter +short.

Additional Information

将 vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 升级到 6.0 失败，并显示 DNS 错误