"Failed to obtain the Primary Network Identifier of the source vCenter Server Appliance" while upgrading 6.5 VCSA during pre-upgrade check on stage 2

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• While upgrading VCSA 6.5 it fails with below error during Pre-upgrade check result on stage 2.

Error: Failed to obtain the Primary Network Identifier of the source vCenter Server Appliance.

Cannot validate target appliance configuration as not enough information from the source appliance can be collected. For more details check out the server logs.

• You will below log entries in requirements-upgrade-runner.log at this location /var/log/vmware/upgrade

2019-xx-xxT14:54:21.317Z INFO config.config_loader Source com.vmware.sso endpoint is not specified and its components could not be found automatically
     2019-xx-xxT14:54:21.448Z INFO UpgradeRunner Loading source versions VC=6.5, SSO=None
     2019-xx-xxT14:54:21.865Z WARNING discovery.probator com.vmware.sso component cannot be found - (vim.fault.InvalidName) {
        dynamicType = <unset>,
        dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
        msg = "'config.vpxd.sso.admin.uri' is invalid or exceeds the maximum number of characters permitted.",
        faultCause = <unset>,
        faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [],
        name = 'config.vpxd.sso.admin.uri',
        entity = <unset>
     }
2019-xx-xxT14:54:22.240Z INFO UpgradeRunner Upgrade will be executed for components '['com.vmware.vmon', 'com.vmware.is', 'com.vmware.netdump', 'com.vmware.vpxd', 'com.vmware.vcdb', 'com.vmware.vcha', 'com.vmware.rhttpproxy', 'com.vmware
.vsan-health', 'com.vmware.syslog', 'com.vmware.ngc', 'com.vmware.applmgmt', 'com.vmware.common_upgrade', 'com.vmware.license', 'com.vmware.rbd', 'com.vmware.sps', 'com.vmware.vcIntegrity', 'com.vmware.cls']'.

•  SSO is not listed in this list suggesting failure in identifying SSO component
• Verify PNID is proper on the source VCSA

 

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x

Cause

When vpxd service starts it will query cs.identity to fetch that sso.admin.url and update the vpxd.cfg file dynamically during the upgrade process.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, we need to check the vCenter configuration and correct the entries in vpxd.cfg manually.

1. Take backup of vpxd.cfg from location /etc/vmware-vpx/vpxd.cfg 
2. Check the tag <sso> and below that we need to have the following entries. 

 <sso>
      <admin>
        <uri>https://VCSA67.lab.local/sso-adminserver/sdk/vsphere.local</uri>
      </admin>
      <default>
        <admin>[email protected]</admin>
        <isGroup>false</isGroup>
      </default>
      <groupcheck>
        <uri>https://VCSA67.lab.local/sso-adminserver/sdk/vsphere.local</uri>
      </groupcheck>

3. Edit the file and update the <uri> tag with the correct URL as per customer embedded VCSA FQDN or PSC FQDN and save the file. 
4. Restart vpxd service for the changes to take effect. 
   • service-control --stop vpxd
   • service-control --start vpxd
5. Re-run the upgrade from Stage 2.