• Provisioning Windows machines fail in a CustomizeOS state before getting destroyed after 2 hours by the default timeout.
• Provisioning Windows machines fail due to SSL certificate failures logged in the Axis2 logs.
• If the incorrect vRealize Automation server addresses are configured during the guest agent configuration, provisioning Windows machines fail.
• If the downloaded Guest Agent zip file was not unblocked before unzipping to the guest, provisioning Windows machines fail.

To troubleshoot the Windows guest agent for vRealize Automation, perform these troubleshooting steps on a newly provisioned machine. If these steps resolve the issue, the guest agent completes its assigned tasks, remove itself from running services, and the machine ends up in an On state within the vRealize Automation.

1. Ensure (at least for testing) that you are using the custom properties:
   
   VirtualMachine.Admin.UseGuestAgent = true and VirtualMachine.Customize.WaitComplete = true
    
2. Ensure that you can ping the FQDN of the vRealize Automation and IaaS Manager Service server. If you cannot, resolve this issue before proceeding to step 3.
3. For additional testing you may want to try using the delay custom property to verify that everything is complete prior to attempting guest customization:
   
   VirtualMachine.Admin.CustomizeGuestOSDelay = 00:05:00 (for 5 minutes).
    
4. Stop the guest agent service from the services in the Windows.
5. Uninstall guest agent by running this elevated command:
   
   c:\vrmguestagent\winservice -u
    
6. Refresh the Windows Services to confirm that the guest agent is no longer present.
7. Delete the VRMGuestAgent folder.
8. Download the guest agent to the guest again (if using vRealize Automation 6.x, you can access from https://vcacFQDN/software.
9. Right-click the downloaded zip file and select properties.
10. Unblock the zip file.
11. Extract the contents of the zip file to the root:
    
    c:\VRMGuestAgent\
     
12. Reinstall by running this command:
    
    winservice -i -h FQDN IaaS Manager Service server:443 -p ssl
     
13. From the Windows Services, start the service.
14. Verify that the guest agent has removed itself from the Services and machine has passed the CustomizeOS state.

To troubleshoot the Linux guest agent for vRealize Automation, perform these troubleshooting steps on a newly provisioned machine. If these steps resolve the issue, the guest agent completes its assigned tasks, remove itself from running services, and the machine ends up in an On state within the vRealize Automation.

1. Ensure (at least for testing) that you are using the custom properties:
   
   VirtualMachine.Admin.UseGuestAgent = true and VirtualMachine.Customize.WaitComplete = true
    
2. Ensure that you can ping the FQDN of the vRealize Automation and IaaS Manager Service server. If you cannot, resolve this issue before proceeding to step 3.
3. For additional testing you may want to try using the delay custom property to verify that everything is complete prior to attempting guest customization:
   
   VirtualMachine.Admin.CustomizeGuestOSDelay = 00:05:00 (for 5 minutes).
    
4. Uninstall the Linux guest agent by running this command:
   
   rpm –e name_of_package
   
   You can verify the package name by running the command:
   
   rpm –qa |grep –i gugent
5. For Ubuntu Distributions: "The guest agent files you download contain both tar.gz and RPM package formats. If your operating system cannot install tar.gz or RPM files, use a conversion tool to convert the installation files to your preferred package format."

6. To remove the Linux guest agent directory, run the command:
   
   rm –rf /usr/share/gugent
    
7. Download the appropriate Linux guest agent from https://FQDN_of_vRA/software.
8. Install the guest agent using this command:
   
   rpm -i gugent-(version).rpm
    
9. Change directory to /usr/share/gugent and run the configuration command:
   
   /installgugent.sh FQDN_of_Manager_Service:443 ssl
    
10. Install the correct cert.PEM file into the directory by running this command:
    
    echo | openssl s_client -connect FQDN_of_Manager_Service:443 | sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > cert.pem
     
11. Reboot the Linux server and monitor the /usr/share/gugent/axis2/logs/axis2.log file for connectivity details indicating that the connection succeeded.
12. Monitor the /usr/share/gugent/guestagent.log file for details on items being retrieved from vRealize Automation.

Note:

• If these steps resolve your issue, you need to perform the same steps against the template used to provision this machine so that all future provisioning completes successfully.
• If these steps do not resolve your issue, gather full contents of the c:\VRMGuestAgent or /usr/share/gugent/ folder and log a new service request for further assistance. For more information, see How to file a Support Request in Customer Connect (2006985).

• Web Server
  • Default Web Sites and application pools running in Internet Information Services
• Model Manager
  • Co-located with the 1st Web Server component
• Manager Service
  • Can be installed with or on a separate Windows system than the Web Server component
    • Service name within services.msc: "VMware vCloud Automation Center Service"
• SQL Server Database
  • Hosted on a Microsoft SQL Server instance
• Distributed Execution Manager
• Agents
  • The below is an example only as installed Agents can have differing names:  Service name within services.msc: "VMware vCloud Automation Center Agent - vCenter"