Cannot connect to Lookup Service error occurring when configuring the VMware Cloud Director Availability On-premise appliance

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• During the setup of the VMware Cloud Director Availability (VCDA) on-premise appliance, the following error is encountered:
  
  Cannot connect to Lookup Service at 'https://x.x.x.x:443/lookupservice/sdk'. Make sure the address is correct and accessible.
  
  
• Attempts to connect to the address on port 443 from the command line on the vCenter appliance from the on-premise appliance succeed without error.
• The issue occurs using both the fully qualified domain name or the IP address.
• Errors similar to the following are seen in the VCDA on-premise appliance replicator.log (/opt/vmware/h4/replicator/logs/replicator.log):
  
  

  2024-10-18 17:52:24.217 ERROR - [UI-########-####-####-####-#############-##-##] [https-jsse-nio-8441-exec-6] c.v.h4.common.service.BaseConfigService  : Failed to connect to lookup service at https://x.x.x.x:443/lookupservice/sdk.

  com.vmware.exception.DnsResolutionException: xxxx.xxxxx.xxx: Temporary failure in name resolution

  ...

  Caused by: com.vmware.vim.vmomi.client.exception.ConnectionException: https://xxxx.xxxxx.xxx/sso-adminserver/sdk/vsphere.local invocation failed with "java.net.UnknownHostException: xxxx.xxxxx.xxx: Temporary failure in name resolution"
        at com.vmware.vim.vmomi.client.common.impl.ResponseImpl.setError(ResponseImpl.java:261)
        ... 144 common frames omitted
Caused by: java.net.UnknownHostException: xxxx.xxxxx.xxx: Temporary failure in name resolution

  ...

Environment

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.x

Cause

VMware Cloud Director Availability is trying to connect to the vCenter server but can't resolve its address. Even if you're using an IP, the vCenter lookup service may return service URLs using the FQDN, which still requires proper DNS name resolution to work correctly.

Resolution

Modify the network settings on the VCDA appliance to include the appropriate Domain Search path, ensuring it can resolve the vCenter address correctly. Additionally, make sure to use the FQDN of the vCenter server when configuring the lookup address.

 

Additional Information

If the environment uses the .local top level domain (e.g., vsphere.local), additional steps are required to enable resolution to work correctly, as noted in the following:

How to use local as a Top-Level Domain in vCloud Availability appliances