"Permission to perform this operation was denied." error when configuring new replications in vCloud Availability 3.x

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When configuring a new replication, the task fails with the error:

Operation aborted due to an unexpected error.    

• In /opt/vmware/h4/cloud/log/cloud.log on the vApp Replication Manager, you see a similar entry:

2020-04-27 04:57:52.037 ERROR - [UI-########-####-####-####-########a123-lF-pb] [task-poller-4] com.vmware.h4.jobengine.JobExecution     : Task ########-####-####-####-########6637 (WorkflowInfo{type='start', resourceType='vmReplication', resourceId='C4-########-####-####-####-########94fd', isPrivate=false, resourceName='null'}) has failed

com.vmware.vdr.error.exceptions.GenericServerException: Operation aborted due to an unexpected error.
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
        ...

• In /opt/vmware/h4/cloud/log/replicator.log on the Replicator, you see similar entries :

2020-04-27 04:57:49.149  INFO - [UI-########-####-####-####-########a123-lF-pb-ep-21] [https-jsse-nio-8043-exec-8] c.v.v.s.c.impl.SecurityTokenServiceImpl  : Successfully acquired token for user: [email protected]
2020-04-27 04:57:51.948 DEBUG - [UI-########-####-####-####-########a123-lF-pb-ep-SM] [job-37] c.v.h.r.lwdproxy.LwdSettingsProvider     : lwdproxy sha SHA-5##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##:##
2020-04-27 04:57:51.960 DEBUG - [UI-########-####-####-####-########a123-lF-pb-ep-SM] [job-37] c.v.h.r.replication.SetupSourceJob       : Unable to start replicating

com.vmware.vim.binding.vim.fault.NoPermission: Permission to perform this operation was denied.
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
        at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
        ...

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vCloud Availability 3.5.x

Cause

The issue occurs when the user account used to configure the lookup service on the vCloud Availability appliances are not part of the vCenter Single Sign-On Administrators group.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, add the user to the default vCenter Single Sign-On Administrators group.

For more information, see the Add Members to a vCenter Single Sign-On Group section of the vSphere documentation.