SDDC manager cluster creation fails during host provisioning steps

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to create a new cluster within a workload domain using SDDC Manager, the cluster creation workflow fails.

The following error message is observed in the SDDC Manager logs during the validation or configuration steps: Unable to create jsch CLI session: com.jcraft.jsch.JSchException: Auth Fail

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x
SDDC Manager 5.x
VMware ESXi 8.x

Cause

The root SSH authentication fails from SDDC Manager to the target ESXi hosts because the hosts are configured to only permit logins using configured RSA keys. Password-based authentication is explicitly denied in the SSH daemon configuration (passwordauthentication no), which prevents SDDC Manager from establishing the necessary CLI sessions to configure the hosts.

Resolution

Follow the steps below to permit password only authentication to your ESXi hosts:

1. Connect to the affected ESXi hosts via an out-of-band console or directly if an existing key-based SSH session is available.

2. Open the SSH daemon configuration file using a text editor: vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

3. Locate the password authentication directive and change it from passwordauthentication no to passwordauthentication yes.

4. Save the file and exit the editor.

5. Restart the SSH service on the ESXi host through the UI (Host > Configure > Services > SSH... Restart)

6. Retry the cluster creation workflow from the SDDC Manager UI.

 

Additional Information

For more information on modifying ESXi SSH configurations or adhering to security compliance frameworks, refer to the VMware Cloud Foundation Security Configuration Guide on techdocs.broadcom.com.