Cannot get vCenter installed in VMware Workstation using OVA file

Question

I am testing in a lab environment with the following setup:

I have a Windows 10 laptop with VMware Workstation 12 Pro installed. I have create a virtual machine in Workstation running Windows Server 2012 R2. I have set up AD and DNS on it. This server has an IP address of 192.168.59.129 and its FQDN is win2012.ad.example.com. I can ping the machine and DNS is working correctly.

I am now trying to install vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 , so far with no success. I am trying to use the OVA file: VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.5.0.5200-4944578_OVF10.ova located in the ISO. I understand after reading several articles that I first need to configure the .vmx file before booting my machine. I think the main reason is that I am not fully understanding the settings that should be placed in the file, specifically the vmdir settings. I have tried a number of different variations on the settings and still nothing seems to be working. My most recent configuration looks like this:

guestinfo.cis.deployment.node.type = "embedded"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr.family = "ipv4"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.mode = "static"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.pnid = "vc.ad.example.com"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr = "192.168.59.194"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.prefix = "24"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.gateway = "192.168.59.129"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.dns.servers = "192.168.59.129"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.root.passwd = "Password#1"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.ssh.enabled = "True"
guestinfo.cis.deployment.autoconfig = "True"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.password = "Password#1"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.site-name = "vc"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.domain-name = "ad.example.com"
guestinfo.cis.ceip_enabled = "False"

I have also made sure that vc.ad.example.com is mapped correctly to 192.168.59.194 on the DNS server, including reverse DNS (PTR) entries.

After the server begins its initialization routine, I eventually get this error on the screen:

Failed to start services. Firstboot Error.

What am I doing wrong here?

Update

As per the answer below, I have changed the config settings to what you see below, but it is still giving me the same error:

guestinfo.cis.deployment.node.type = "embedded"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr.family = "ipv4"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.mode = "static"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.pnid = "vc.ad.example.com"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr = "192.168.59.194"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.prefix = "24"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.gateway = "192.168.59.129"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.dns.servers = "192.168.59.129"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.root.passwd = "Password#1"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.ssh.enabled = "True"
guestinfo.cis.deployment.autoconfig = "True"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.ntp.servers = "pool.ntp.org"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.password = "Password#1"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.site-name = "mysite"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.domain-name = "vsphere.local"
guestinfo.cis.ceip_enabled = "False"

Any other ideas?

Answer 1

There are two things that might be causing issues for you from the information you've posted so far.

The vmdir.site-name and vmdir.domain-name values are not relating to the AD site name and domain name. vCenter has it's own site and domain name concepts that you're supposed to enter here. The site name is arbitrary (until you get into multiple vCenter deployments). The domain name is essentially the vCenter specific Kerberos realm (defaults to vsphere.local). And because you set the domain name to the same name as your AD domain, they conflict.

Also, in your AD DNS, do you have a reverse zone setup such that the PTR lookups against the IP addresses resolve back to the names? vCenter is historically sensitive about forward and reverse lookups working.

Answer 2

After further investigation, it turned out that the problem was a resource issue. While I did have 16GB of RAM, the combination of the host machine, Windows Server, ESXi install, and vCenter Server did not seem to like that even though it fell within the 16GB requirement.