vCenter license assignment failure due to incorrect license server FQDN in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

• License assignment to vCenter fails in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 due to a hostname resolution error.  
• The failure details display the explicit error: "vCenter is unable to resolve the license server host name. Ensure an A record and PTR are added to the DNS servers used by the vCenter."  
• The licensing server's Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is appears incorrectly under VCF Operations > Manage > Licensing > Licensing and registration > Manage > License Server.
• Incorrect domain search path configured in the vApp properties of the license server virtual machine within vCenter.

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1

Cause

The license server virtual machine is designed to inherit its networking information directly from its vApp properties. If an incorrect domain search path is configured within these properties, the virtual machine is assigned the wrong Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). This misconfiguration ultimately leads to hostname resolution failures when the vCenter attempts to communicate with the license server.

Resolution

1. Locate the license server virtual machine in the vCenter inventory.  
2. Power off the Virtual Machine
3. Navigate to Configure > vApp Options. 
4. Scroll down to the Properties section.  
5. Locate the domain search path setting.  
6. Click on "SET VALUE."  
7. Add the correct Domain Search Path.  
8. Power on the VM.