"Invalid Configuration for Device 0" error seen on NSX-ALB (Avi)

Products

• VMware

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
- Service Engine deployment fails in a vCenter write access cloud.
- VS placement fails on an existing Service Engine.
- When the user tries to do the above tasks, there is the error "Invalid Configuration for Device 0" in the UI.

Cause

- When deploying SEs on vSphere distributed port-groups or adding a new nic for VS placement, an API call is made from NSX-ALB (Avi) to vCenter to map the desired distributed port-group for the SEs using the MOID (Managed Object ID or moref) of the chosen network.
- If the MOID value of that distributed pg differs from the key string value within the vCenter database, then an error occurs mapping that network presented as: "vNIC addition failure – invalid configuration for device ‘0’.
- To verify if there is a mismatch in the vcdb, please follow the steps below:

1. SSH to vCenter 
2. /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -d VCDB
3. select id, dvportgroup_name, dvportgroup_key, dvportgroup_type from vpx_dvportgroup;

4. Confirm id & dvportgroup_key match up for the number.

  id | dvportgroup_name | dvportgroup_key | dvportgroup_type
 ----+-------------------------+-----------------+------------------
  29 | Guest-Infra-Edge-A | dvportgroup-29 | earlyBinding
  30 | Overlay-Edge-A | dvportgroup-25 | earlyBinding <--------- mismatch
  28 | vDS-Edge-A-DVUplinks-23 | dvportgroup-28 | earlyBinding

Resolution

- From the NSX-ALB side, there is already a Feature Request filed to enhance the product to communicate with vCenter with the key string rather than the id, as it currently does.
- You can refer to the following RFE with your account team for questions on the roadmap and ETA. Ref: https://avinetworks.atlassian.net/browse/RFE-3658

Workaround:
- To fix this from the NSX-ALB side, you will have to create a new distributed pg which will create an entry in the vcdb with the same MOID and dvportgroup_key.
 - In the SE or VS creation, please refer to this newly created port-group.