Unable to Push Signed Certificate to Host vCenter Error

I was trying to add an ESXi host to my lab vCenter server and received the error message, “A general system error occurred: Unable to push signed certificate to host.”

It turns out that the problem is because the vCenter server and the ESXi host’s time were out of sync. Here are the steps I used to fix the issue.

Step 1: Configure NTP servers on the Host

If you’re managing your ESXi hosts with vCenter, it is a good idea to configure the hosts to sync to an NTP server. To configure your ESXi host to synch with NTP servers, follow this link – Step 2: Prepare Your VMware ESXi Environment.

On the above link, scroll to the “3. Configure all ESXi Hosts to Synch to Network Time Server (NTP)” subsection.

Step 2: Configure vCenter Time Synch with Host

1. Sign in to the vCenter appliance management console on port 5480. Here is a sample URL for my vCenter appliance.

Sign in with the vCenter appliance’s root account

https://ipmvcsa.corp.itechguides.com:5480/

2. Once you’re signed in, click Time on the left menu, then, next to “Time synchronization,” click EDIT.

3. On the “Edit Time Synchronization Settings” pop-up, click the Mode drop-down and select Host. After selecting Host as the vCenter Time Synchronization mode, click SAVE.

Conclusion

Once you complete the above two steps – especially step 2 – you should be able to add the ESXi host to the vCenter server without any errors. However, in the rare instance that the problem is not resolved, apply the steps in the Resolution section of this VMWare guide, “A general system error occurred resolution.”

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