How to Check VCF 9 Hardware Compatibility: Servers, CPUs, NICs and vSAN ESA Devices
The four checks that decide VCF 9 hardware support: BCG listings, CPU KB 318697, ESX 9 deprecated devices and vSAN ESA certification with a fresh HCL DB.
Category: VMware
Supervisor Stuck in Configuring: “ERROR – Configured Core Supervisor Services” with ReconcileFailed
Supervisor stays in Configuring with "ERROR - Configured Core Supervisor Services" and velero or tkg packages in ReconcileFailed because docker-registry.kube-system.svc returns Service Unavailable. The proxy is the cause (KB 411761).
Supervisor Certificates Expired? Check and Rotate vSphere Supervisor Certificates with certmgr
Supervisor control plane and spherelet certificates expire after one year. How to check them, rotate them from vCenter with Broadcom's certmgr tool, persist the new keys, and which certificates certmgr does not cover (KB 322994).
Tesla P40 Passthrough GPU Disappears from the VM: “PCIe link to the device is down” on ESXi
My NVIDIA Tesla P40 in ESXi passthrough suddenly vanished from the VM: nvidia-smi could not talk to the driver and a VM reboot did not help. What the logs show, why only a host reboot fixes it, and how to make a homelab P40 stable (KB 418517).
Supervisor Deployment or Upgrade Stuck at “Installed and Started Kubernetes Node Agent on the ESXi Host”
Supervisor deployment or upgrade hangs in Configuring Host Nodes with repeated Apply Solution tasks? The spherelet VIB cannot install because the hosts are not compliant with the vLCM image, sometimes because of legacy BIOS boot (KB 393663).
TKG, Supervisor and VKS Nodes Cannot Resolve .local Hostnames: Cause and Workarounds
Kubernetes nodes on vSphere fail to resolve names ending in .local while the DNS server answers fine. Why systemd-resolved sends .local to mDNS, and the lab-only workarounds for TKG, the Supervisor and VKS clusters (KB 317072, KB 323444).
VKS Cluster Stuck in Provisioning: “failed to create volume” with POST /vsanHealth 503 Service Unavailable
A VKS cluster stays in provisioning, control plane nodes run but workers never power on, and volume creation fails with POST /vsanHealth 503. Why the vCenter vsan-health service matters for CNS and how to fix it (KB 409491).
vSphere CSI Node Pods in CrashLoopBackOff with “Unauthorized” on a VKS Cluster: Cause and Fix
New vsphere-csi-node pods on a VKS cluster crash with "failed to get VirtualMachines for the node ... Unauthorized"? The CSI controller still uses an old token. Restart the vsphere-csi-controller deployment (KB 411871).
vSphere Pod Traffic to ClusterIP Times Out on a VDS Supervisor: Cause and Workarounds
On a vSphere 8 Supervisor with VDS networking, vSphere Pods time out to ClusterIP services: ErrImagePull, CrashLoopBackOff or a stuck Supervisor service install. Why the gateway drops it and how to work around it (KB 312199).
VKS Workload Cluster Upgrade Stuck Draining a Node: Pinniped kube-cert-agent and MachineDrainRule
A VKS 3.3+ workload cluster upgrade hangs because an old node never finishes draining: a pinniped kube-cert-agent pod keeps coming back. How to recognize it and fix it with a MachineDrainRule (KB 410900).