Disabled SMB1 and VCSA Domain Join Failure

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As Ned Pyle from Microsoft so eloquently put it: “Stop using SMB1. Stop using SMB1. STOP USING SMB1!” If Wannacry wasn’t a wake up call to remove SMB1 from your network you need to re-evaluate that opinion.

Anyway, I was rebuilding my lab environment at home and disabled SMB1 on all Windows servers (I played it safe and removed the feature and disabled using a GPO). I didn’t think this would be a problem until I was trying to join my vCenter Server Appliance to the domain. I just couldn’t get it to join.

I tried through the interface which never really gave me a reason so I went to the command line. At the vCSA shell I was getting:

vcsa:~ \# /opt/likewise/bin/domainjoin-cli join domain.com Domain_Administrator Password
Joining to AD Domain:   corp.contoso.com
With Computer DNS Name: vcsa.corp.contoso.com

Error: ERROR_GEN_FAILURE [code 0x0000001f]

Searching that error led me to Ned’s SMB1 Product Clearinghouse page. It’s a list of all products that require SMB1, and the vCSA is on there. The two links for the vCSA are:

Basically vCSA defaults to SMB1 for joining to the domain. SMB2 is supported, just not the default. To fix this at the Shell on the vCSA:

  1. Enable the SMB2Enabled Flag in likewise’s config:
    /opt/likewise/bin/lwregshell set_value '[HKEY_THIS_MACHINE\Services\lwio\Parameters\Drivers\rdr]' Smb2Enabled 1
    
  2. Verify:
    /opt/likewise/bin/lwregshell list_values '[HKEY_THIS_MACHINE\Services\l wio\Parameters\Drivers\rdr]'
    "Smb2Enabled"      REG_DWORD       0x00000001 (1)
    
  3. Restart likewise:
    /opt/likewise/bin/lwsm restart lwio
    

You will now be able to join the vCSA to the domain.

Hey VMware - how about updating the KB article saying the fix is to enable SMB1 which is proven to be incorrect? Thanks to Virtualization Nation for the real fix.

Update 13th November 2017

This is an update to the original post contents above. As of vCenter Server 6.0 Update 3c SMB2 is supported without the modifications above. See the release notes here.

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