If you choose to install the vCSA 6.5 in two different components, you may have an error during the PSC custominization (happens also on latest 6.5U1):

An error occurred while starting service ‘pschealth’

This it’s related to a failure of identity management service error on first boot, so during the phase 2 of the deployment where the appliance has already been upload, but still must be configured.

You have to restart the deployment process and pause the install process right before phase 2.

At this point, open a console to the appliance, enable SSH, connect with SSH (just to be able to use copy & paste) and on the appliance run the following command:

echo "::1 localhost.localdom localhost" >> /etc/hosts


At this point, if you continue the installer it will work properly.

Why and when it happens is more complicated. I found that it happens when you deploy on a local storage (typically before build a vSAN cluster), and others report that could be for a slow storage (funny, in my case wasn’t slow, but could be a good hint).

In this post I’ve found that a solution could be disable the AHCI modules, but check first if is used by your disks (use the alternate boot bank could be useful to restore your ESXi, in case does not boot anymore):

esxcli system module set –enabled=false –module=vmw_ahci