Re-try an existing workflow by modifying the workflow spec file

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation
• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

The SDDC Manager workflow being attempted is failing due to incorrectly provided input configuration. There is no way to edit the configuration from the UI before restarting the task.

This article provides the steps to extract the workflow spec file, make the required changes to it, and re-inject it to the existing workflow so it can be retried with an updated value. 

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x

Cause

The cause is likely due to incorrectly supplied input configuration either in the JSON input spec, or via the SDDC UI.

Resolution

 

1. Take a snapshot of SDDC Manager VM
2. Login the SDDC Manager UI, and click on the failed Task we need to edit and retry.
3. Note the workflow ID, which is the subtasks URL
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. SSH to the SDDC Manager with the 'vcf' user and then type 'su root'.
5. Update the applications.properties file to all access via curl (5.x and 9.x only). 

   echo "vcf.vault.http-access=true" >> /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties

   systemctl restart domainmanager

6. Use the following GET API call to retrieve the spec file for the workflow

   curl -k -s http://localhost/domainmanager/internal/vault/<workflow_id_from_url> -X GET | json_pp > /tmp/workflow.json

7. Edit the contents of the workflow.json as needed. Note that there may be several places that need to be updated in the json.  

         Download the workflow.json file in /tmp/workflow.json with WinScp and edit the content with Notepad ++ , then upload the workflow.json to the same place that it was pulled from /tmp/workflow.json.

        Note: This is due to the special characters that are used in the passwords having a special significance and it will cause issues during the search process when editing the content in VI. 

      8. Use the following PUT API call to update the spec file for the workflow     

curl -k -s http://localhost/domainmanager/internal/vault/<workflow_id_from_url> -X PUT -H "Content-type: text/plain" -d @/tmp/workflow.json

       9. From the SDDC Manager UI, Restart the Task

         

The task will be attempted again using the new workflow spec file provided

Additional Information

Depending on the workflow that is being attempted, modifying the workflow manually can have a significant impact to the environment. Please ensure that you have appropriate backups and snapshots of the components involved in the workflow.

Once the workflow.json file has been created, You can use WinSCP to edit the workflow.json file to make finding and replacing the incorrect configuration info easier (ie wrong license key). But for that to work, you will need to change to change the permission of the workflow.json file before you are able to edit the file within WinSCP. By default the workflow.json file is created with permission -rw--------- root root. Run the following "chmod 777 workflow.json" to change the permission, and then you should be able to edit the file thru WinSCP. Once done, proceed to step 6.

If you need to obtain the account credentials for a service account, follow the steps in this article: Retrieve the service accounts credentials from SDDC Manager