"Operation failed!, Permission denied" error when attempting to configure SSH Login Message for the vCenter in Advanced Settings.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• While attempting to customize the SSH login message for the vCenter 8.0 appliance using the vSphere Client, navigating to Configure > Advanced Settings > Edit Settings > etc.issue proved unsuccessful.

• This action resulted in an error: 'Operation failed! A general system error occurred: Permission denied'

• Error in "/var/log/vmware/vpxd/vpxd.log"

vcsa# grep -B 14  -i "New Login Message" /var/log/vmware/vpxd/vpxd.log
 

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS error vpxd[06093] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=########-######-####-####-##:########-##] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR) -- VpxSettings -- vim.option.OptionManager.updateValues: :vmodl.fault.SystemError
--> Result:
--> (vmodl.fault.SystemError) {
-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->    faultMessage = <unset>,
-->    reason = "Permission denied"
-->    msg = ""
--> }
--> Args:
-->
--> Arg changedValue:
--> (vim.option.OptionValue) [
-->    (vim.option.OptionValue) {
-->       key = "etc.issue",
-->       value = "New Login Message"

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

This is a known issue and Broadcom Engineering is aware of the issue. It has been planned to be fixed in future releases of the vCenter.

Resolution

As a temporary solution, we can manually edit the vCenter appliance SSH etc.issue login message using the 'vi' editor.

Use 'vi' to manually edit the '/etc/issue' file to set the vCenter appliance SSH login message.
 

• Connect to the vCenter appliance via SSH using the command ssh root@vcenter_fqdn.
  
  
• Switch to the bash shell by following the instructions outlined in the VMware KB article Toggling the vCenter Server Appliance default shell (2100508)
  
  
• Use the 'vi' editor to modify the /etc/issue file by executing the command vi /etc/issue.
  
  
• Press 'i' to enter insert mode within the editor.
  
  VMware vCenter Server 8.0.2.00200
Type: vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller
~
-- INSERT -- 


• Modify the existing message to your desired text.
  
  VMware vCenter Server 8.0.2.00200
New Login Message
~
-- INSERT -- 


• Press 'Esc' to exit insert mode.
  Type ':wq' to save the changes and quit the editor.
  
  VMware vCenter Server 8.0.2.00200
New Login Message
~
:wq


• Confirm that the changes have been applied by running the command cat /etc/issue.
  
  VMware vCenter Server 8.0.2.00200
New Login Message