Remote plugins do not work after upgrading to windows vCenter Server 6.7 U1

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Remote plugins are not visible in the vSphere UI.
• Browsing console shows error similar to: HTTP Error 405- Get is not supported for url: https://<vcenter_ip>/api/ui/htmlClientSdk.js.
• Trying to access https://<vcenter_ip>/api/ui/htmlClientSdk.js through a web browser results in HTTP 405 error.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x

Cause

This issue occurs when https://<vcenter_ip>/api/ui/htmlClientSdk.js is inaccessible. The upgrade scripts of Windows vCenters do not upgrade the VMware HTTP Reverse Proxy to allow traffic to the vSphere UI SDK resources causing this issue.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, manually add the needed reverse proxy configuration to allow access to the vSphere UI SDK resources.

1. Perform these steps to find the internal port the vSphere UI service is running on:

a. Go to C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\runtime\vsphere-ui\server\configuration and open the tomcat-server.xml file.
b. Look for the HTTP IPv4 connector of the tomcat server (the first one defined in the file),
e.g.:<Connector port="5090" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol" address="127.0.0.1" maxThreads="800" ...
c. Make a note of the value of the "port" attribute, in this case (and in most cases) - 5090.

2. Go to %VMWARE_CFG_DIR\vmware-rhttpproxy\endpoints.conf.d\vsphere-ui-rhttpproxy.conf (usually resolves to C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\cfg\vmware-rhttpproxy\endpoints.conf.d\vsphere-ui-rhttpproxy.conf) add the following line and save the file.

"/api/ui local <vsphere_ui_internal_port> redirect allow",
e.g."/api/ui local 5090 redirect allow"

3. Perform these steps to restart the rhttpproxy service.

a. Open a terminal in C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin in the vCenter Server machine
b. Run the command service-control --stop rhttpproxy
c. Run the command service-control --start rhttpproxy

Note: The vCenter server will stop responding to all requests while the proxy is restarting.