RHEL 8 Servers Fail to update IP During Failover using VLSR

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• IP customization failed on RHEL 8 VMs with error:
  "Cannot complete customization, possibly due to a scripting runtime error or invalid script parameters (Error code: 255). IP settings may have been partially applied" 

• Error code 126 may also be exhibited during this issue:
  
  "Cannot complete customization, possibly due to a scriptiong runtime error or invalid script parameters(Error code: 126). IP settings may have been partially applied."
  
  
  
• During customization, the vmware-dr.log showed the following sequence:

56 DEBUG: opening file for writing (/etc/sysconfig/network).
ERROR: Fatal error occurred during customization !! Customization halted.
ERROR: Error : Is a directory: Error writing data to file (/etc/sysconfig/network). 
Is a directory at /var/run/.vmware-imgcust-dlgIeQH/scripts/Utils.pm line 655.

• With RHEL 8.0, the network configuration path --- /etc/sysconfig/network is now a directory as against earlier RHEL versions when it was a file and thus error “Is a directory” may be seen.

Environment

VMware Live Site Recovery 9.x

Cause

• Issue is caused due to absence of cloud-init package in these RHEL 8.0 Guest VMs.
  
  
• VLSR server logs report following errors indicating cloud-init package not installed.

  (from /opt/vmware/support/logs/srm/vmware-dr.log)

  2026-07-25T14:44:23.965Z error vmware-dr[14139] [SRM@6876 sub=Recovery ctxID=w0cl0 opID=87e0afdc-9bf7-459a-8a53-7ccaba28d340-failover:4p:94:vw:2b:3g] [095f82fc-653e-4383-adfb-10597a0ec8c6.ipCust-protected-vm-47979-IPCustomization] Complete with Error '(dr.recovery.fault.IPCustomizationFailure) {

  
  -->       output = "Starting IP customization on Linux ...
--> /tmp/vmware-root_####-############/srm-vmware150/wrapper.sh: line 44: /tmp/vmware-root_####-############/srm-vmware150/linuxDeployPkg: Permission denied
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.563Z] [   debug] ## Starting deploy pkg operation
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.563Z] [    info] VMware Tools Version: 12.#.#.##### (build-########)
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.563Z] [   debug] Deploying /var/run/d08578bd/vmware-srm##-#########.cab
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.563Z] [   debug] The valid [deployPkg] wait-cloudinit-timeout value range: 0 ~ 1800

  
  --> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.563Z] [    info] Extracting package files.
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.564Z] [   debug] Command to exec : '/usr/bin/cloud-init'.
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.564Z] [    info] sizeof ProcessInternal is ##
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.564Z] [    info] Returning, pending output from stdout
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.564Z] [    info] Returning, pending output from stderr
--> [2026-07-25T14:43:48.564Z] [   error] execv failed to run (/usr/bin/cloud-init), errno=(2), error message:(No such file or directory)

Resolution

1. Deploy cloud-init package on RHEL VMs at protected site.
   
   Please refer to the document for more information on Cloud-Init installation https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere-sdks-tools/8-0/web-services-sdk-programming-guide/virtual-machine-guest-operations/guest-customization-using-cloud-init/prepare-a-virtual-machine-template-for-raw-data-cloud-init-customization.html
   
   
2. Allow replication sync to complete for these VMs.
   (Run 'Sync Now' if these VMs are replicating using vSphere Replication. For Array-based Replication, run manual sync from Storage Array Management console)
   
   
3. Re-run planned Migration for Recovery Plan of which these VMs are part of.