Error when trying to enable or disable VM Discovery with Global load balancer set

Products

VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

Disabling or enabling VM Discovery (provider portal -> Administration -> General -> Other) when there is a Global load balancer set fails with

URI is not absolute.

Any changes made to the public address also results in the error

URI is not absolute.

The following can be seen in the log file vcloud-container-debug.log under /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: URI is not absolute
        at java.base/java.net.URL.fromURI(URL.java:692)
        at java.base/java.net.URI.toURL(URI.java:1116)
        at com.vmware.ssdc.util.UriUtil.toUrlWithoutTrailingSlash(UriUtil.java:84)
        at com.vmware.ssdc.util.UriUtil.conflicts(UriUtil.java:68)
        at com.vmware.ssdc.backend.CAkimbiSystems.lambda$checkEndpointsForMultisiteUrlConflicts$0(CAkimbiSystems.java:799)
        at com.vmware.ssdc.backend.CAkimbiSystems.checkEndpointsForMultisiteUrlConflicts(CAkimbiSystems.java:804)
        at com.vmware.ssdc.backend.CAkimbiSystems.updatePublicEndpointSettings(CAkimbiSystems.java:765)
        at com.vmware.ssdc.backend.CAkimbiSystems.updateSystemSettings(CAkimbiSystems.java:632)
        at com.vmware.vcloud.management.system.SystemServiceImpl.updateSystemSettings(SystemServiceImpl.java:572)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
        at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:566)

Environment

VMware Cloud Director for Service Provider 10.x

Cause

This is a known issue in VMware Cloud Director 10.3.x where the API call created from changing the above settings sends a null payload for the below:

systemExternalAddress: null
systemExternalAddressPublicCertChain: null
systemExternalHttpAddress: null

The above needs to be populated for the Global load balancer to work.

Resolution

This issue is due to be fixed in future version of VMware Cloud Director.

Workaround:
There are two current workarounds available:

Workaround 1 (recommended) :

Manually input the values for the system.external.http.link and system.external.link so that when the API payload is sent the values are not null.

Note down the public address of Cloud director (Provider portal -> Administration -> Settings -> Public Addresses)
SSH to the primary cell
Run the following

/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n system.external.http.link -v '<Public address>'

/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n system.external.link -v '<Public address>'

The shh session will indicate that a new property has been stored
This can be checked on the database by running the following

select * from config where name like '%system.external%';

Example:

[ /opt/vmware/vcloud-director ]# /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n system.external.http.link -v 'http://vcdlab.vcloud.local'

New property being stored: Property "system.external.http.link" has value "http://vcdlab.vcloud.local"

[ /opt/vmware/vcloud-director ]# /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n system.external.link -v 'https://vcdlab.vcloud.local'

New property being stored: Property "system.external.link" has value "https://vcdlab.vcloud.local"

vcloud=# select * from config where name like '%system.external%';

-----------+--------+---------------------------+--------------------+-----------+----------------------------+-----------

225661 | vcloud | system.external.http.link | http://vcdlab.vcloud.local | 0 | 2022-09-15 10:33:06.328+00 | f

225681 | vcloud | system.external.link | https://vcdlab.vcloud.local | 0 | 2022-09-15 10:33:29.238+00 | f

(2 rows)

Workaround 2 (Not recommended) :

Remove the Global load balancer namespace and make the change required (once this setting is removed, logging into VMware Cloud Director portal will not be possible).