May 17, 2020

Waiting for the HCX software updates to initialize download


When you installing HCX Enterprise, after activating it stuck with "waiting for the hcx software updates to initialize download"

Make sure to download latest available HCX version from VMware




Make sure you can access below using port 443.If you follow up the documentation this is a prerequisite for HCX implementation among the bunch of other port requirements.




===============
In My case this was ok..

curl -k -v https://connect.hcx.vmware.com
*   Trying 45.60.65.140...
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Connected to connect.hcx.vmware.com (45.60.65.140) port 443 (#0)
* ALPN, offering http/1.1
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, [no content] (0):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Encrypted Extensions (8):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Certificate (11):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, [no content] (0):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, CERT verify (15):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1):
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, [no content] (0):
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Finished (20):

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>302 Found</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Found</h1>
<p>The document has moved <a href="https://connect.hcx.vmware.com/hybridity/ui/services-1.0/sitemanager/index.html">here</a>.</p>
</body></html>
* Connection #0 to host connect.hcx.vmware.com left intact


================
But this was failing with error 403,

curl -k -v https://Hybridity-depot.vmware.com
*   Trying 23.218.42.78...
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Connected to Hybridity-depot.vmware.com (23.218.42.78) port 443 (#0)
* ALPN, offering http/1.1
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Certificate (11):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Server key exchange (12):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Server finished (14):
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client key exchange (16):
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1):
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSL connection using TLSv1.2 /
* ALPN, server accepted to use http/1.1

< HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
< Server: AkamaiGHost
< Mime-Version: 1.0
< Content-Type: text/html
< Content-Length: 177
< Expires: Wed, 13 May 2020 14:09:07 GMT
< Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 14:09:07 GMT
< Connection: keep-alive
<
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Error</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>
An error occurred while processing your request.<p>
Reference&#32
</BODY></HTML>
* Connection #0 to host Hybridity-depot.vmware.com left intact


Finally we found out that this is due to an SSL certificate injection in the Firewall, once this is set to bypass I was able to proceed with the HCX installation.


you can follow VMware own HCX documentation which contain lot of information.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-HCX/services/user-guide/GUID-BFD7E194-CFE5-4259-B74B-991B26A51758.html