Converting a reserved desktop to a gold pattern fails with an unknown agent status in VMware Horizon DaaS

Was setting up VMware Horizon Daas for the first time and clearly it looks like I missed a configuration step. The desktop was prepared, agents installed, firewall disabled, local administrator enabled, certificated imported, etc. i.e. the desktop looked good from a config perspective.

From the Daas Agent logs at C:\Program Files (x86)\DaaS Agent\service\DaaSAgent

2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Starting DaaS Agent 6.1.0, Build-22158.1 \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - System Info: Windows7\_64(6.1), Professional, Service Pack 1
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Hostname : daas, Workgrp: , NetBiosDomain: DEMO, IP: 192.168.1.171, MAC: 00:50:56:96:41:95
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - GSoapWithSsl server certificate validation is enabled
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - GSoapWithSsl using certificate PEM file: C:/Program Files (x86)/VMware/VMware DaaS Agent/service/../cert/cacert.pem
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Message Listener port: 49331
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Start ElementMessageListener thread...
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Global SeqGen Mutex created successfully.
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - AgentErrorReporter, AgentErrorReporter is initialized.
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[WARN \] DaaSAgent - DHCP IP address list is empty, check dhcp settings.
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[WARN \] DaaSAgent - standby address list is empty.
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[WARN \] DaaSAgent - tryElementLogonWithVmId - dhcp/standby address list is empty, will try with cached addresses.
2015-05-21 19:19:59 \[WARN \] DaaSAgent - Failed element logon with vmid <1> time(s), will retry after <20> seconds.

From the Tenant appliance logs: /var/log/desktone/desktone.log

2015-05-21 07:51:18,389 INFO  \[com.desktone.elementmgr.service.impl.ElementManagerImpl\]-\[Thread-15767\] doConvertVMToGoldPattern, beginning conversion for task convertVMToGoldPattern\_S.1002.1, VM name 'Win7Gold'
2015-05-21 07:51:18,414 INFO  \[com.desktone.vmgr.client.VirtualizationManagerClient\]-\[Thread-15767\] Vmgr id '0d0a6d65-5794-4153-99a2-1e0920b5ab68' is not configured for this Emgr node, configured id is '66cd573a-9630-473c-ad44-d94e725e25c4'.   
2015-05-21 07:51:18,445 INFO  \[com.desktone.vmgr.client.VirtualizationManagerClient\]-\[Thread-15767\] Vmgr id '0d0a6d65-5794-4153-99a2-1e0920b5ab68' is not configured for this Emgr node, configured id is '66cd573a-9630-473c-ad44-d94e725e25c4'.
2015-05-21 07:51:18,609 ERROR \[com.desktone.elementmgr.service.impl.ElementManagerImpl\]-\[Thread-15767\] doConvertVMToGoldPattern, The given agent version is null

So what is the configuration that I missed out on?

The Daas Agent during startup needs to advertise itself to the Tenant Appliance. It does this by communicating with the tenant appliance’s ip address. The tenant appliance’s ip address is retrieved from either the DHCP server or the MonitorAgent.ini config file at C:\Program Files (x86)\DaaS Agent\service\

In order to configure the DHCP server to advertise the tenant appliance’s ip address, we need to configure the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Servers option in the DHCP scope. This is also known as DHCP option 74.

To configure the IRC scope option in Windows DHCP:

Launch the DHCP snap in
Expand the scope that you have configured.
Right click on Scope Options and select Configure Options
Check 074 Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Servers add the tenant appliance’s IP address and click OK.

To manually configure the tenant ip in each desktop,

Stop the VMware Daas Agent service.
Backup and edit the MonitorAgent.ini file
Remove the semi colon from the following parameter,;standby_address=
Add the tenant appliance IP address. For eg.:standby_address=192.168.1.166, 192.168
Save the file and start the Agent service.

The following logs will be logged for a successful DaaS agent startup:

2015-05-21 20:07:53 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - 
2015-05-21 20:07:53 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Starting DaaS Agent 6.1.0, Build-22158.1 \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
2015-05-21 20:07:53 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - System Info: Windows7\_64(6.1), Professional, Service Pack 1
2015-05-21 20:07:53 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Hostname : daas, Workgrp: , NetBiosDomain: DEMO, IP: 192.168.1.171, MAC: 00:50:56:96:41:95
2015-05-21 20:07:53 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - GSoapWithSsl server certificate validation is enabled
2015-05-21 20:07:53 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - GSoapWithSsl using certificate PEM file: C:/Program Files (x86)/VMware/VMware DaaS Agent/service/../cert/cacert.pem
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Message Listener port: 51272
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Start ElementMessageListener thread...
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Global SeqGen Mutex created successfully.
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - AgentErrorReporter, AgentErrorReporter is initialized.
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[WARN \] DaaSAgent - standby address list is empty.
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - tryElementLogonWithVmId - trying getVMId @ 192.168.1.195
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Retrieving VM ID for: daas, IP: 192.168.1.171, MAC: 00:50:56:96:41:95
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Get VM ID OK.
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Found element '192.168.1.195'which manages this VM
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - tryElementLogonWithVmId - trying logon @ 192.168.1.195
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Logon - IP: 192.168.1.171, hostname: daas, domain: DEMO, os type: Windows7\_64
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Seqencence number: 0, port: 51272
2015-05-21 20:07:54 \[INFO \] DaaSAgent - Log on OK with result '3352914760304114519'.