Discover & Take Action page displays "The application server encountered an error while trying to fulfill your request. (400 Bad Request) "

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Discover & Take Action page displays "The application server encountered an error while trying to fulfill your request. (400 Bad Request) "

• The issue may occur with some LDAP or vIDM users accounts but not all. The affected users are part of many groups.
• NSX-T Intelligence logs (pace-server.log) display message(s) similar to:

2021-04-14 13:08:46,346 INFO o.a.j.l.DirectJDKLog [http-nio-127.0.0.1-7447-exec-9] Error parsing HTTP request header
 Note: further occurrences of HTTP request parsing errors will be logged at DEBUG level.
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Request header is too large

Environment

VMware NSX-T

Cause

This issue is caused by large HTTP header size which the NSX-T Intelligence appliance cannot process. It occurs when a LDAP or vIDM user is part of many groups.

Resolution

This issue will be resolved in a later Intelligence release.

Workaround:
Workaround to manually increase max http header size on 3.2 and later versions:

1. Edit the workload configmap:
   $ kubectl --kubeconfig <kubeconfig file> edit cm workload-app -n nsxi-platform

The file location will depend on where NAPP was deployed. It could be '~/.kube/config' on an NSX Manager node.

2. Add the following line under the 'server' section in the configmap:
   max-http-header-size: 65535

3. Delete the current workload pod
  To identify the workload pod run the following command. There should be one pod beginning with 'workload':
   $ kubectl --kubeconfig <kubeconfig file> get pod -n nsxi-platform  
  Then delete the workload pod:
   $ kubectl --kubeconfig <kubeconfig file> delete pod <workload pod name> -n nsxi-platform

After the new workload pod comes up automatically, the issue should be resolved.



Workaround on versions before 3.2: 
Either reduce the number of groups for the affected users or increase the maximum http header size setting on the NSX-T Intelligence appliance using the steps below:

1. Login as root on the NSX-T Intelligence appliance.

2. Backup the pace configuration file:
#cp /opt/vmware/pace/config/pace-server-application.properties /opt/vmware/pace/config/pace-server-application.properties.bck

3. Edit the pace configuration file:
#vi /opt/vmware/pace/config/pace-server-application.properties

Add the following line at the end of the file:
server.max-http-header-size=65535


4. Backup the nginx configuration file
# cp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ui-service.conf /tmp/ui-service.conf.bck

5. Edit the nginx configuration file
# vi /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ui-service.conf

Add the following line at line number 29 right below "server_name_;"
large_client_header_buffers 4 65k;

6. Restart related services .
    
# service nginx restart
# service pace-server restart


7. Check the UI.


Note: this setting is persistent across reboots.