"Backend validation of NFS failed with: is owned by an unknown user." error when deploying a Cloud Director Appliance.

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Deploying a Cloud Director Appliance will fail with NFS error.
• "Backend validation of NFS failed with: is owned by an unknown user." error when deploying a Cloud Director Appliance.
• When using a NetApp storage array as the Transfer, deploying a Cloud Director Appliance will fail.

Cause

This issue occurs when the Appliance deployment checks fail when validating the NFS.

Resolution

This issue can be observed in the later versions of Cloud Director in which the deployment workflow has been altered, such as 10.2.x, 10.3.x, 10.4.x and later.

Workaround:

Instead of following the steps in "Configure the VMware Cloud Director Primary Appliance" and "Configure the VMware Cloud Director Standby and Application Cells" , configure the appliances by using the VMware Cloud Director Appliance SystemSetup API. This will bypass the NFS validation failure.

For example for Cloud Director 10.3 and above (API Version 36.0), use the versioned endpoint required by the SystemSetup API:
https://<IP>:5480/api/1.0.0/systemSetup

For example for Cloud Director 10.2, use the experimental (not versioned) endpoint of the SystemSetup API:
https://<IP>:5480/api/systemSetup

In either case, execute a POST to the SystemSetup API. Also note that the SystemSetup API requires a unique request body that must match the appliance's deployment type.

This is an example of the request body for a Primary appliance:

{
    "applianceType": "primary",
    "storage": {
        "nfs": "<IP>:/data/transfer"
    },
    "appliance": {
        "dbPassword": "vcloud",
        "ceip": true
    },
    "sysAdmin": {
        "username": "administrator",
        "password": "secret-password",
        "fullName": "cloud administrator",
        "email": "[email protected]"
    },
    "installation": {
        "name": "vcd5",
        "id": 5
    }
}

This is an example of the request body for a Standby appliance:

{
    "applianceType": "standby",
    "storage": {
        "nfs": "<IP>:/data/transfer"
    }
}

This is an example of the request body for a Cell appliance:

{
    "applianceType": "cell",
    "storage": {
        "nfs": "<IP>:/data/transfer"
    }
}

For more information on the SystemSetup API see VMware Cloud Director Appliance API SystemSetup API Request Body - Samples and VMware Cloud Director Appliance API SystemSetup.

Additional Information

Configure the VMware Cloud Director Primary Appliance
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Director/10.3/VMware-Cloud-Director-Install-Configure-Upgrade-Guide/GUID-2519C02C-1903-464F-A344-D199A3318C3A.html

Configure the VMware Cloud Director Standby and Application Cells
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Director/10.3/VMware-Cloud-Director-Install-Configure-Upgrade-Guide/GUID-8A6FE1B9-5554-41BA-92F9-0D1E07B3E581.html