Adding ESXi hosts to vCenter fails with "Failed to Verify Certificate" error when using CA-signed certificates

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

After installing CA-signed (Certificate Authority) certificates on an ESXi host, the following error occurs when adding the host to vCenter

A general system error occurred: Failed to verify certificate on <ESXi-FQDN-or-IP>. When ESXi Certificate Mode is set to custom it is mandatory to install valid certificate on ESXi host before adding the host to VC

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

The certificate's chain of trust is broken, causing chain verification to fail (e.g., the certificate issuer is 'VMware Installer').

 

Resolution

Follow the steps in the section "Installing and configuring the certificate on the ESXi host" of this Knowledge Base article: Configuring CA signed certificates for ESXi hosts