Unable to enable vSAN File service after VSAN cluster shutdown with the warning 'No internet connection detected, the system cannot auto download OVF. Provide OVF manually instead'

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Due to planned maintenance activity, VSAN cluster was shutdown by following the steps documented in the below document which also includes deactivating VSAN file services.

  Manually Shut Down and Restart the vSAN Cluster

• After cluster restart, when trying to enable the VSAN file service, below warning is observed indicating there is no internet connection

  

• However, when you navigate to vCenter server > Configure > Internet Connectivity, you can see that the internet connectivity status is enabled

  
  
  
  This is expected since following the VCF Product Unified Releases, the auto-download method for vSAN File Service OVF previously available in vSAN File Service enablement or upgrade is disabled in the user interface on all 7.x, 8.x, and 9.x vCenter Servers. "No internet connection detected, the system cannot auto download OVF" VSAN File Service enablement fails during OVF download from online repositories

• When you try to manually upload the files and try to enable the service, it fails to proceed further with the below error message

  'The selected OVF version is the same as the existing one. Select a newer version or choose "Use current OVF" to continue'

  

• However, as can be seen from the above screenshot 'Use current OVF' option is not available

Environment

VMware VSAN 8.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the OVF file stored on the vCenter server was only partially uploaded, resulting in a corrupted or incomplete package.

Cause Justification

On navigating to path /storage/updatemgr/vsan/fileService we can see the VSAN file service ovf files already exists at this path under the folder ovf-8.0.3.1000-2######1

On listing the contents of the folder, we can see that few files are partially copied. In this instance, system.vmdk file is copied partially

 

cd /storage/updatemgr/vsan/fileService/ovf-8.0.3.1000-2######1
ls -ltrh

Sample output:
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users  61K Oct 26 12:43 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1_OVF10.ovf
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 1.1M Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1-log.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 2.0K Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1_OVF10.cert
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users  573 Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1_OVF10.mf
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 102M Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1-cloud-components.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 882M Oct 26 12:49 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1-system.vmdk.filepart

In an environment with all files correctly uploaded, the output will be similar to the one listed below

-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users  61K Oct 26 12:43 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1_OVF10.ovf
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 1.1M Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1-log.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 2.0K Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1_OVF10.cert
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users  573 Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1_OVF10.mf
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 102M Oct 26 12:44 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1-cloud-components.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 vsan-health users 882M Oct 26 12:49 VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-8.0.3.1000-2######1-system.vmdk

Resolution

To resolve this issue, we need to download the files which are partially copied and replace the old files with the new file

• To download the file service appliance follow the steps documented in Download location of vSAN Witness Appliance and File Service Appliance

• Replace the partially copied file on the vcenter server with the newly downloaded file using winscp

• Restart the vsan-health and eam services on the vcenter server using the below commands

  vmon-cli -r vsan-health

  service-control --stop vmware-eam

  service-control --start vmware-eam

• Login to the VC UI, go to vSAN cluster-> Configure and the enable vSAN file service. The option to use the current OVF is now enabled