Taking action on Proactive alert towards Cloud Gateway experiencing connection loss in vSpherePlus Environment

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When connectivity between the vCenter Server and Cloud Gateway Appliance or connectivity between the Cloud Gateway Appliance and VMware Cloud Services is lost an alert banner is shown in vSphere Client stating that “VMware Cloud Gateway is not connected to VMware Cloud.”

This is a proactive alert shown to take recommended action to validate and address the issue.

Environment

VMware vSphere+ Cloud Services

Cause

There are multiple reasons why the connectivity between vCenter Server and Cloud Gateway Appliance or connectivity between the Cloud Gateway Appliance and VMware Cloud Services is lost. The probable causes and recommendations are mentioned below in the resolution section.

Resolution

Please find below the probably cause and recommendations for the issue:

1. NTP Settings:

a) NTP for Cloud Gateway should be set up to time.vmware.com with port UDP 123 as stated in VMware Cloud Gateway Requirements .
b) To troubleshoot NTP sync issues, please refer to Troubleshooting NTP on ESX and ESXi 6.x / 7.x / 8.x.

2. Proxy Validation:

a) Ensure all listed domains in vSphere+ documentation are allowed.
b) SSL Interceptor is not supported. Please bypass the communication by referencing to Vendor documentation.

3. vCenter Certificates:

a) Use lsdoctor tool to validate SSL certificates and address any reported issues. Please refer to Using the 'lsdoctor' Tool for more information.

4. Gateway/vCenter status:

a) Review Cloud Gateway status by navigating to vmc.vmware.com

i. If the status shown as disconnected, reboot Cloud Gateway.

b) Review vCenter server status in Cloud console. If the status reported as unreachable, validated the above steps to address the issue.

Note: If the issue persists or requires any assistance while following the recommendations, please raise a Support Request with GSS by following the LINK along with Cloud Gateway and registered vCenter server logs.

 

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
This message or connectivity does not impact any of the vSphere or vCenter functionality immediately. It however implies some limitations when using the vSphere Client. It can be used only for 45 minutes.  After that time, the UI session will automatically be terminated, and logged out. Any background operations (i.e., backups, snapshots, etc....) that are started will NOT be affected and will continue as normal. Login again by providing your credentials – the new UI session will again be available for 45 minutes only. The behavior will continue until connectivity between VMware Cloud services and vSphere is restored.