Connecting to an Online Depot for VCF Fleet Management fails due to DNS resolution error

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

• Connecting to an Online Depot for VCF Fleet Management fails with an error "Error in setting Online Depot configuration"

• 

• Errors in /var/log/vrlcm/vmware_vrlcm.log in the Fleet Management appliance indicate a failure to resolve the Broadcom depot host, similar to the following:

  Download failed.URL:https://dl.broadcom.com/#############//PROD/metadata/manifest/vl/vcfManifest.json, dl.broadcom.com Temporary failure in name resolution 

  or

  Could not resolve host: dl.broadcom.com
  

• Running a curl command from the VCF Fleet Management appliance to verify connectivity fails at the DNS resolution phase rather than network routing:

  curl -v https://dl.broadcom.com
  * Could not resolve host: dl.broadcom.com
  * Closing connection 0
  

Environment

VCF Fleet Management 9.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the DNS server currently configured on the VCF Fleet Management appliance is unable to route or resolve traffic for the external FQDN dl.broadcom.com. This can happen if the configured DNS server is unreachable, is misbehaving, or lacks the necessary forwarders to resolve external internet addresses.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must update the DNS configuration on the VCF Operations Fleet Management appliance to point to a DNS server capable of resolving external traffic.

1. Identify and verify the correct DNS server IPs that have external resolution enabled.

2. Follow the steps outlined in the documentation to update the DNS settings on the appliance: Reconfigure DNS and Domain Search on VCF Operations Fleet Management Appliance.

3. Once the new DNS configuration has been applied and successfully verified, re-initiate the Online Depot configuration from the VCF Operations UI.

Additional Information

If DNS resolves successfully (e.g., the curl command resolves the IP but fails to connect), the issue may be related to network-level interruptions or a firewall/proxy blocking the TLS handshake. For troubleshooting connection reset or network unreachable errors, see KB 420533: Connecting to an Online Depot for VCF Fleet Management fails with error.