Upgrading to vCenter Server 7.0, 8.0 fails when case differs between FQDN and PNID

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Prechecks fail during upgrade to vCenter Server 7.0, 8.0 with the following message

The source appliance FQDN must be the same as the source appliance primary network identifier

• The FQDN and the PNID match in everything except the capitalization of some letters. For example:

VCSA.domain.LOCAL
 vs.
vcsa.domain.local

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

This is caused by case sensitivity in the appliance management service. Confirm that case is the only difference between the two values with the following commands from an SSH session to the vCenter Appliance:

Primary Network Identifier (PNID)

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-pnid --server-name localhost

Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)

hostname

Resolution

To resolve this issue, connect to the vCenter Appliance via SSH and update the FQDN to match the case of the PNID.

1. Use vmafd-cli to get the PNID value

• /usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-pnid --server-name localhost

2. Run the VAMI network configuration tool

• /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net
• Choose option 3 "hostname"
• Input the PNID output from step 1

3. Retry the Upgrade