Usage Meter hostname is set to "photon-xxxx" after deployment when using underscores

Products

• VMware Usage Meter

Issue/Introduction

After deploying the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Usage Meter appliance from an OVF template, the hostname is not set to the value specified during deployment.

Instead, the appliance defaults to a hostname starting with "photon-" followed by a random hexadecimal string.

Environment

VCF Usage Meter 9.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the hostname specified during OVF deployment contains an underscore (_) character.
The underlying Photon OS adheres to internet host standards (RFC 952 and RFC 1123), which only allow hyphens (-) as special characters.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must change the hostname to a compliant format (using only alphanumeric characters and hyphens) and update the appliance certificates.

Step 1: Change the Hostname

For detailed instructions, refer to the How to change hostname in Usage Meter 9.0

Note:  Ensure that both Forward (A) and Reverse (PTR) DNS records are updated to match the new hostname before performing the change.

Step 2: Update Certificates

For detailed instructions, refer to the Certificate Management Utility for VCF Usage Meter

Additional Information

While newer versions of Usage Meter (9.0.1+) have improved handling of case sensitivity, it is still a best practice to use all lowercase letters for hostnames to prevent potential DNS and PTR record mismatch issues.

Accessing Usage Meter 9.0 Web Interface by FQDN redirects to IP address.