Upgrade from vCenter 7.0 to 8.0 Fails Due to Password Length Issue

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When attempting an upgrade from vCenter 7.0 to 8.0, the upgrade fails on stage 2 with the following error message:

Error: Encountered an internal error: see /var/log/firstboot/vmafd-firstboot.py_26361_stderr.log This is an unrecoverable error, please retry install. If you encounter this error again, please search for symptoms in the VMware Knowledge Base for any known issues and possible resolutions. If none can be found, collect a support bundle and open a support request

In the log file /var/log/firstboot/vmafd-firstboot.py_26361_stderr.log Verification of the username and password shows an error related to password length and configuration:

2025-01-28T13:51:22.210Z  dir-cli failed, error= Authentication to VMware Directory Service failed.
Verify the username and password. 9234
2025-01-28T13:51:22.210Z  Enter password for [email protected]:

Environment

vCenter 7.x

vCenter 8.x

Cause

The issue is related to the password length for the [email protected] user The password exceeds the supported length for vCenter, which is restricted to 20 characters. Starting from vSphere 6.0, non-ASCII characters are allowed, but passwords cannot exceed 20 characters as mentioned in Document VMware vCenter Server Password Requirements

Resolution

 

• Change the password for the [email protected] user to a length of 20 characters or fewer follow kb How to reset SSO password in vCenter Server
• Ensure that no non-ASCII characters are present if they are not required for security policies.
• Retry the upgrade process once the password is corrected.

 

Additional Information

The password length limitation is documented in VMware's security guidelines. For more details, refer to the official documentation:
VMware vCenter Server Password Requirements