I had a similar issue. Before I was getting "the specified domain doesn't exist in vCenter UI"
What resolved it for me was first looking at /var/log/syslog.log
I saw:
011-11-07T23:47:37Z netlogond[4801]: [LWNetDnsQueryWithBuffer() /build/mts/release/bora-396388/likewise/esxi-esxi/src/linux/netlogon/utils/lwnet-dns.c:1185] DNS lookup for '_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.my.domain.com' failed with errno 0, h_errno = 1
I resolved it by adding the domain controller as the primary DNS server to /etc/resolve.conf
syslog showed then showed this:
2011-11-07T23:53:15Z nssquery: Group lookup failed for 'MY\ESX Admins'
This must be the default Admin group it looks to. This is good because before a standalone server for VC the administrators group all = ESX admin access.
So added this group as well on the AD.
Note varibles:
Already added the host object to AD
I am tranversing firewalls.
I connected with the FQDN for both the domain and the user@FQDN
This is a single ESXi 5.0 server environment. No vCenter yet--- untill we migrate over from 35.
Before I was getting "the specified domain doesn't exist in vCenter UI"