ESXi Host Preparation for NSX Fails with an Error: "Waiting for connection to Managers"

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

When you click on "View Errors" in the below screenshot , you will see the following error: "Timed out waiting for host to join NSX Manager" Additionally, attempting to resolve the same from the NSX UI fails with the error: "Failed to install software on host. Timed out waiting for host to join NSX Manager"

Environment

VMware NSX-T Data Center 3.0 and later
VMware NSX 4.0 and later

Cause

You may observe logs on the ESXi host indicating connectivity issues to the NSX Manager, as shown below.

/var/log/nsx-syslog.log:

<Time Stamp> Wa(180) nsx-proxy[2108041] NSX 2108041 - [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-esx" subcomp="nsx-proxy" s2comp="nsx-net" tid="2108065" level="WARNING"] StreamConnection[593] Resolving to ssl://FQDN.NSX.MGR.NODE:1234 sid:-1] Couldn't resolve 'ssl://FQDN.NSX.MGR.NODE:1234' (error: 1-Host not found (authoritative))
<Time Stamp> Wa(180) nsx-proxy[2108041] NSX 2108041 - [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-esx" subcomp="nsx-proxy" s2comp="nsx-net" tid="2108065" level="WARNING"] StreamConnection[593] Error to ssl://FQDN.NSX.MGR.NODE:1234 sid:-1] Error 1-Host not found (authoritative)
<Time Stamp> Wa(180) nsx-proxy[2108041] NSX 2108041 - [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-esx" subcomp="nsx-proxy" s2comp="nsx-rpc" tid="2108065" level="WARNING"] RpcConnection[593] Connecting to ssl://FQDN.NSX.MGR.NODE:1234 0] Couldn't connect to ssl://FQDN.NSX.MGR.NODE:1234 (error: 1-Host not found (authoritative))
<Time Stamp> Wa(180) nsx-proxy[2108041] NSX 2108041 - [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-esx" subcomp="nsx-proxy" s2comp="nsx-rpc" tid="2108065" level="WARNING"] RpcTransport[0] Unable to connect to ssl://FQDN.NSX.MGR.NODE:1234: 1-Host not found (authoritative)
<Time Stamp> In(182) nsx-proxy[2108041] NSX 2108041 - [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-esx" subcomp="nsx-proxy" s2comp="nsx-rpc" tid="2108065" level="INFO"] ConnectionKeeper[5] ssl://FQDN.NSX.MGR.NODE:1234] scheduling connection attempt in 5000 ms

Resolution

ESXi hosts must be able to resolve the NSX Manager using its Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). You can verify this by performing the following steps:

• Review the /etc/resolv.conf file to ensure that a valid and active DNS server is configured.
• Ensure that the ESXi host can successfully resolve the IP addresses of all NSX Manager nodes using nslookup.

Additional Information

This Waiting for connection to Managers issue/error may also be encountered due to certificate related issues. For additional details, refer to the following KB: Certificate Unknown

Also, refer to the following KB for more information on identifying and resolving DNS name resolution issues on an ESXi host.