CentOS 7 Image Gets Stuck on "starting" State on a Vmware vCenter Cloud Type

Introduction

This document describes the solution to the problem that occurs when CentOS 7 custom image is created and on deployment, it gets stuck on the "starting" state when the standard documented procedure is used.

Background Information

For your reference:

Problem

CentOS 7 has multiple issues with the networking on Vmware that affects the Image deployment procedure in Cloud Center.

The detected issues were:

• Firewall services seem to interfere with the correct communication
• IPv6 IP is reported to vCenter instead of IPv4
• Machine does not get the IPv4 from DHCP on start up

Solution

Multiple solutions are needed to make it work:

1. Run this command; systemctl disable firewalld and disable the firewall from the template.
2. Disable IPv6 from the image and edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file and add this line: net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1.
3. If you see that even after these steps the VM does not get an IP, then follow these steps:
   
   

   Try to add a script to force the dhcp retrieval:
   
   

   1. 1. Navigate to /etc/init.d.
      2. Create a file with this, the name as “net-autostart“,
         
         

         #!/bin/bash
         # Solution for "No Internet Connection from VMware"
         #
         ### BEGIN INIT INFO
         # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
         # Default-Stop: 0 1 6
         ### END INIT INFO
         dhclient -v

      3. Save the file.
      4. Change the file permission as executable:
         
         

         chmod 755 net-autostart

      5. Add this script for auto-start and use chkconfig command,
         
         

         chkconfig --add net-autostart