Stateless ESXi hosts configured with Auto Deploy fails to join VCSA due to DNS query timeout

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• ESXi hosts booting via Auto Deploy fails to join VCSA during bring up
  
  
• Performing a DeployRulesetCompliance query on the hosts using PowerCli may return with an error as "The request channel timed out while waiting for a reply after 00:04:59.9989995. Increase the timeout value passed to the call to Request or increase the SendTimeout value on the Binding. The time allotted to this operation may have been a portion of a longer timeout."
  
  
• /var/log/vmware/rbd/rbd-syslog.log

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS warning rbd  [PID]addhost:WARNING:Host(<Host Management IP>) currentTime : YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS err rbd  [PID]addhost:ERROR:Could not get host name info for <vmk IP address>.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bora/install/vmvisor/autodeploy/var/rbdplugins/addhost.py", line 323, in __init__
socket.gaierror: [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS err rbd  [PID]addhost:ERROR:Could not get host name info for <vmk IP address>.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bora/install/vmvisor/autodeploy/var/rbdplugins/addhost.py", line 323, in __init__
socket.gaierror: [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS warning rbd  [PID]addhost:WARNING:Host(<Host Management IP>) currentTime : YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS err rbd  [PID]addhost:ERROR:Could not get host name info for <vmk IP address>.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bora/install/vmvisor/autodeploy/var/rbdplugins/addhost.py", line 323, in __init__
socket.gaierror: [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS err rbd  [PID]addhost:ERROR:Could not get host name info for <vmk IP address>.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bora/install/vmvisor/autodeploy/var/rbdplugins/addhost.py", line 323, in __init__
socket.gaierror: [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution

Cause

This issue is seen as Autodeploy processes all the vmkernel virtual network adapter (vmk) IPs sequentially for a DNS lookup. As there is no resolution being configured for non-management IP address, hence there are 8 retries for each vmk IP address resulting in a timeout during the host join operation

Resolution

Broadcom is working towards a permanent fix for this issue.

As a temporary workaround, create an empty Reverse Lookup Zone for the vmkernel portgroup subnet to avoid the timeout during the host bringup