vCenter deployment fails when using an FQDN of 63 characters in VMware Cloud Foundation

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When you attempt to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) or a workload domain via SDDC Manager, the installation fails during Stage 1 or Stage 2. You observe the following symptoms:

• The deployment fails at approximately 80% completion.
• DNS resolution for the FQDN is verified as working correctly.
• The vCenter installation fails if the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is exactly 63 characters long.
• Deployments with an FQDN of 62 characters or fewer succeed without error.

In the vmafdd logs, you see an error similar to: [####-##-##T##:##:##.###Z] NOTICE vmafdd ######## [vc@####] VmAfdRpcServerInit failed (4294967294) [####-##-##T##:##:##.###Z] NOTICE vmafdd ######## [vc@####] RPC service status (not yet listening)

Environment

VCF 9.x

Cause

This issue occurs due to a product defect in the Likewise library components. When you use an FQDN that is exactly 63 characters long, the VmAfdRpcServerInit process fails to bind to the DCE/RPC port ####. This prevents the VMware Authentication Framework (vmafd) and dependent services from starting, which results in a failed vCenter deployment

Resolution

There is no permanent workaround available at this time as a code change in the vCenter components is required to fully support FQDNs of 63 characters.

To resolve this issue during deployment, you must ensure the total length of the vCenter FQDN is 62 characters or fewer.

Follow these steps to remediate a failed deployment:

1. Delete the failed vCenter or workload domain deployment task.
2. Update your DNS records to provide a hostname that results in a total FQDN length of 62 characters or fewer.
3. Verify that the new FQDN is resolvable (forward and reverse) and contains at least three labels (e.g., ####.####.####).
4. Restart the deployment process using the shortened FQDN