vROps collection fails in Usage Meter after its certificate is replaced

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
After vROps certificate is replaced, data collection for it fails in  Usage Meter. When updating the administrator credentials of vROps in Usage Meter, the latter shows 'invalid credentials' for vROps.

Environment

VMware vCloud Usage Meter 3.x

Cause

The reason for this issue is that Basic authentication is disabled in vROps 8.1 and later.

Resolution

To solve this issue follow the steps below.

Procedure

1. Enable Basic authentication in vROps.
2. Un-register vCenter in vROps.
3. Remove the vROps reference from the vCenter MOB.
4. Re-register vCenter in vROps.
5. Click Rebuild for the vROps instance in the Usage Meter 3.X web application. For Usage Meter 4.X, remove and then register the vCenter server with which this vROps is associated.
6. Log out and then log into Usage Meter. vROps will be now discovered.

Enable Authentication for API in vRealize Operations 8.1 and later

1. Log in to the vRealize Operations Primary node as root via SSH or console.
2. Open /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/conf/api-conf.properties in a text editor.
3. Change the basicAuthentication.enabled property value to true.

basicAuthentication.enabled=true

4. Save and close the file.
5. Restart the REST API service:

service api restart

6. Repeat steps 1-5 on all other nodes in the vRealize Operations cluster.

Un-register vCenter in vROps

1. In the vROps UI, navigate to Administration -> Solutions -> Select VMware vSphere.
2. Click Configure (the gear wheel) and then click Manage Registrations.
3. Enter the vCenter credentials and click the Unregister button to complete this request. 
4. Now register vCenter back using the Register button.

Remove vROps reference from vCenter MOB page

1. Open in your browser “https://<vCenter-FQDN-or-IP>/mob/?moid=ExtensionManager”.
2. Log in with vCenter SSO admin credentials.
3. Find [“com.vmware.vcops”] and [“com.vmware.vrops”] extension in the extensionList.
4. Click on those extensions to verify if they are referring to the correct vROPs server.
5. Click on UnregisterExtension at the bottom.
6. Provide the extension name and click Invoke Method.  Repeat for both extensions. This will remove the vROps reference from vCenter. Refresh the page and ensure they are no longer on the page.

Re-register vCenter in vROps

1. In the vROps UI, navigate to Administration -> Solutions -> Select VMware vSphere.
2. Click Configure (the gear wheel) and then click Manage Registrations.
3. Enter the vCenter credentials and click the Register button to complete this request. 

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
vROps collection in Usage Meter fails.