ESXi Host Profile Apply Fails with "Error while setting firewall configuration for syslog" During Stateless Boot After Upgrading from 7.x to 8.x

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

After upgrading stateless ESXi hosts from version 7.x to 8.x using Auto Deploy, host profiles may fail to apply properly, resulting in hosts that cannot fully boot into production service. Customers experiencing this issue typically observe the following symptoms:

• Hosts remain stuck in maintenance mode after rebooting
• Host profile application fails with the error message: "Host profile apply failed during stateless boot. Host is in Maintenance Mode. Failed Profiles: NetworkProfile"
• Network configuration fails specifically with: "Error while setting firewall configuration for syslog"
• vCenter shows hosts as connected but not fully compliant with their host profiles
• The Auto Deploy workflow appears to complete but hosts cannot exit maintenance mode
• When attempting to manually remediate profiles, errors such as "invalid argument: portgroupName" may appear
• When trying to export the affected host profile, you might see: "There is no suitable host in the inventory as reference host for the profile"

This issue commonly occurs in environments where hosts are removed from inventory before rebooting as part of the upgrade process from ESXi 7.x to 8.x, and is related to expired evaluation licenses during the stateless boot sequence.

Environment

• VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x
• VMware ESXi 7.x hosts being upgraded to ESXi 8.0.x
• Auto Deploy in stateless configuration
• Host profiles created for or exported from ESXi 7.x hosts
• Workflow includes removing hosts from inventory before rebooting for upgrade

Cause

When using Auto Deploy, if a host is removed from inventory and then rebooted, the host may fail to obtain a valid license. This happens because:

1. Auto Deploy provides a temporary evaluation license for network-booted hosts not yet in vCenter inventory
2. The duration of this evaluation license is calculated based on when the host was first seen by Auto Deploy
3. For hosts that were initially deployed long ago, this evaluation license may appear expired
4. When the license is expired, host profiles cannot apply certain configurations that require valid licensing (particularly network configurations)

Resolution

Solution 1: Wait for vCenter 8.0 Patch 5 (or later)

A fix for this issue is planned for a future release. The fix ensures hosts always receive at least 1 day of evaluation license time, which is sufficient for host profile application to complete successfully.

Solution 2: Use "Remediate Host Association" Instead of Removing Hosts

1. Log in to the vSphere Client and navigate to Auto Deploy
2. Select the Deployed Hosts tab
3. Select the host that needs to upgrade
4. Click Remediate Host Association
5. Select the new image rule for ESXi 8.x
6. Complete the remediation wizard
7. Reboot the host

This method preserves license data while still allowing the image version to change.

Additional Information

• If there are both ESXi 7.x and 8.x images in the Auto Deploy environment, users may also encounter cache corruption issues. See KB article 374630: Auto Deploy is not booting hosts and web ui is not responding
• When upgrading from ESXi 7.x to 8.x, consider increasing the Auto Deploy cache size in /etc/vmware-rbd/autodeploy-setup.xml to at least 8GB, as ESXi 8.x images are larger and may require more cache space
• This issue is planned to be fixed in a later release by ensuring hosts always receive at least 1 day of evaluation license time
• For optimal results when upgrading between major ESXi versions with Auto Deploy, using the "Remediate Host Association" workflow is recommended over removing hosts from inventory