Error "Failed to fetch VCF Supported Esxi Versions. Please try after some time" is observed during host commission on SDDC manager

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

• During host commissioning, clicking "VALIDATE ALL" triggers the following UI error: "Failed to fetch VCF Supported Esxi Versions. Please try after some time"

• The SDDC Manager operates in a dark site - an isolated network with no outbound internet or external DNS access.
• The /var/log/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/operationsmanager.log records a timeout error while getting the VCF supported ESXi versions from LCM:

    <YYYY-MM-DD>T##:##:17.###+0000 ERROR [vcf_om,0000000000000000,0000] [c.v.v.h.f.v.s.u.HostFreePoolValidationUtils,om-exec-14] Error while getting the VCF supported ESXi versions from LCM
com.vmware.cloud.foundation.rest.lcm.runtime.ApiException: java.net.SocketTimeoutException: timeout
    ...
    <YYYY-MM-DD>T##:##:17.###+0000 ERROR [vcf_om,0000000000000000,0000] [c.v.v.h.f.v.s.i.VCFSupportedESXiVersionValidator,om-exec-14] Unable to get VCF supported ESXi version from LCM service
    <YYYY-MM-DD>T##:##:17.###+0000 ERROR [vcf_om,0000000000000000,0000] [c.v.v.h.c.s.i.CommissionHostsValidator,om-exec-14] Host validation failed for Host: <ESXI_HOST_FQDN>

• However, the /var/log/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-debug.log confirms the LCM service successfully retrieves the version:

    <YYYY-MM-DD>T##:##:07.###+0000 INFO  [vcf_lcm,################################,####] [c.v.e.s.l.s.i.ImageManagementServiceImpl,http-nio-127.0.0.1-7400-exec-9] ESXi version for the release 9.1.0.0 is {"name":"ESX_HOST","version":"9.1.0.0.25370933","publicName":"VMware ESX","releaseURL":"https://techdocs.broadcom.com/bin/gethidpage?ux-context-string\u003drelease_notes-9-1\u0026appid\u003dvcf-9-1\u0026language\u003d\u0026format\u003drendered"}

 

Environment

VCF 9.x

Cause

The SDDC Manager performs an unexpected DNS lookup for techdocs.broadcom.com (extracted from the releaseURL field). This network lookup causes a timeout during the version validation process, even though the LCM service has successfully retrieved the ESXi version data.

Resolution

• Resolution: This issue will be resolved in a future release, currently targeted for SDDC Manager 9.1.2
• Workaround: Implement one of the following options:

Option 1: Utilize the Host API Use the Developer Center to trigger commissioning via the API, which bypasses the UI-specific validation failure:

• POST /v1/hosts

       

Option 2: Modify /etc/hosts Force the SDDC Manager to resolve the URL locally by adding the following entry to /etc/hosts:

     127.0.0.1  techdocs.broadcom.com