Unable to deploy VCF 9.0 on Dell customized ESX images

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

• The host was initially installed with the Dell OEM ESXi 9.0.0 image and subsequently patched using the standard ESXi 9.0.2 release.
• Failed to install VCF 9.0.2 with an error.
  
  vCenter installation failed. Check logs under /var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/ci-installer-XXXX for more details. Reference Token: XXXX


• The following error was found in the /var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/ci-installer-XXXX log file.
  
  value = 'Error:\n com.vmware.vapi.std.errors.error\nMessages:\n com.vmware.vcIntegrity.lifecycle.EsxImage.SoftwareInfoExtractError<An error occurred while extracting image info on the host.>\n com.vmware.vcIntegrity.lifecycle.ExtractDepotTask.HostExtractDepotFailed<Extraction of image from host XXXX failed.>\n'

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x

Cause

The ESXi host designated as the first host in the management domain was installed using a pre-release or beta build of ESXi. The VCF deployment process, which uses vLCM to "seed" the cluster image from this first host, fails because the host's image is in an inconsistent and unsupported state.
ESXi installed via Dell OEM image requires Dell OEM patches. Patching with a standard image can lead to system inconsistencies.

Resolution

1. Perform a clean installation of ESXi 9.0.2 Standard Image.
2. Redeploy VCF.