Unable to connect to vCenter Inventory Service

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Immediately after logging in to the vSphere Web Client, you see the error:

Unable to connect to vCenter Inventory Service running at https://server-address:server-port

In the vSphere Web Client, there is a limit of 60 simultaneous sessions per user. If you encounter this error, you might have exceeded the session limit.

To verify that this is the cause of the error, check the ds.log log file located at:

• Server on which the Inventory service is installed – ProgramData\VMware\Infrastructure\Inventory Service\Logs\
• vCenter Server Appliance – /var/log/vmware/vpx/inventoryservice/

Look for entries similar to:

[2012-06-08 09:59:49,138 pool-10-thread-1 ERROR com.vmware.vim.vcauthenticate.servlets.AuthenticationHelper] Authentication error: com.vmware.vim.vcauthenticate.exception.VimAuthenticateException: com.vmware.vim.query.server.authorization.exception.AuthorizationException: Too many sessions for user: username

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vSphere Web Client 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vSphere Web Client 5.5.x

Resolution

To resolve this issue, increase the number of allowed sessions per user.

 

To increase the number of allowed sessions per user:

1. Open the security-config.xml file using a text editor. This file is located at:
   • vCenter Server on Windows – Inventory service install location/lib/server/config/
   • vCenter Server Appliance – /usr/lib/vmware-vpx/inventoryservice/lib/server/config/
      
2. Insert the following entry as line 68:
   
   <property name="maxUsagePerPrincipal" value="<i>max users" />
   
   Where max users is the maximum number of sessions per user.
   
   For example, to increase the per-user session limit to 200, change the following section of the file:
   
   <bean class="com.vmware.cis.authorization.impl.AuthorizationManagerImpl" id="authorizationManager" init-method="init">
   <property name="dataProvider" ref="authProvider" />
   </bean></bean>
   
   To:
   
   <bean class="com.vmware.cis.authorization.impl.AuthorizationManagerImpl" id="authorizationManager" init-method="init">
   <property name="dataProvider" ref="authProvider" />
   <property name="maxUsagePerPrincipal" value="200" />
   </bean></bean>

 

For related information, see Reset the vCenter Server Inventory Service database 5.1 (2042200).

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:

• 日本語: vCenter Inventory Service に接続出来ない (2053670)
• 简体中文: 无法连接到 vCenter Inventory Service (2102004)

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