When attempting to join your vCenter appliance to AD, you may get the following error message when clicking the Join button:

Error

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException

This is known behaviour when running vCenter with an external Platform Service Controller (in HA mode) but the issue may persist even after upgrading vCenter to a new version with the option to switch to an embedded PSC. You can work around the issue by performing the domain join from the CLI (through SSH):

1. Connect to the vCenter appliance through SSH (if it's still an external PSC, connect to that instead).
2. Unless shell access is already activated, use the shell command to enter the regular shell.
3. Run the following command to perform the AD join:

   /opt/likewise/bin/domainjoin-cli join [domain] [username]

   For example: /opt/likewise/bin/domainjoin-cli join domain.local administrator
4. You will be prompted for the password of the account. If the domain join successfully completed, you will see the text: SUCCESS.
5. Reboot the appliance to apply the change. You can use the reboot shell command if you're still logged in.
6. After the reboot, you can optionally verify the status via UI or via CLI by running the command: /opt/likewise/bin/domainjoin-cli query