If the vCenter Server Appliance deployment fails, you can retrieve the log files and examine them for the reason of the failure.

The full path to the log files is displayed in the vCenter Server Appliance deployment wizard.

In case of firstboot failure, you can download the support bundle on a Windows host machine and examine the log files to determine which firstboot script failed. See Export a vCenter Server Support Bundle for Troubleshooting.

Procedure

  1. On the Windows machine that you use for deploying the vCenter Server Appliance, navigate to the log files folder.
    If you are logged in as an administrator, by default this is the C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\VMware\CIP\vcsaInstaller folder.
  2. Open the installation log files in a text editor for examination.