Greenfield deployment of VCF 9.0 is stalled at SDDC Manager deployment stage with error "IP is not a valid fully qualified domain name (FQDN)" in the Installer UI

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• The option to convert the Installer VM to the SDDC VM has been chosen rather than the option to deploy a separate SDDC VM.
  
  
• The Installer VM FQDN is fully resolvable, forward and reverse.
• The host management network on the host where the Installer VM is running has a VLAN associated with it.
• The Deployment Wizard UI displays the correct IP for the Installer VM but it's in the "Appliance FQDN" field:

 

• The deployment cannot proceed.

Environment

VCF 9.0

Cause

• During deployment of the VCF Installer OVA, it creates a VM Network automatically - however, the VLAN ID is not automatically added to the VM Network Port-group. 
• This causes an additional entry to be created in the /etc/hosts file of the VCF Installer mapping the Installer FQDN to the loopback address (127.0.0.1) instead of the Installer IP.

Resolution

Option 1:

• Amend the /etc/hosts file on the installer VM.
• Replace '127.0.0.1   Installer_FQDN' with 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX   Installer_FQDN' where 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' is the correct IP for the Installer VM.
• The 'Appliance FQDN' field in the Deployment Wizard should now be populated with the correct FQDN and the deployment can proceed.

Option 2:

• During the OVA deployment Wizard for VCF Installer, uncheck the "Power on automatically" check boxComplete the VCF Installer Deployment
• Edit the powered off VM and update the VLAN ID on the VM Network Port-group
• Power on VCF Installer and proceed with the deployment.