Accessing vRealize Automation 7.x's Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) Best Practices

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

• The network name in which is being used to access the VAMI web services through the client browser URL is fully qualified but the appliance was deployed with shortname

Or

• The network name in which is being used to access the VAMI web services through the client browser URL is the virtual IP of the :443 address assigned to the host settings tab
• vRealize Automation 7.5:  Data fields will not be properly populated with information when logging into the VAMI
• vRealize Automation 7.6: When accessing the vRealize Automation Appliance management web services interface the following error is encountered under vRA > Summary

Unable to load CPU and memory usage chart.  The error was: Forbidden

Environment

VMware vRealize Automation 7.6.x
VMware vRealize Automation 7.5.x

Resolution

Access the VAMI web services within the client browser URL that matches to the hostname of the network hostname the virtual appliance was deployed as.  

If the system was deployed as shortname, rename the host with FQDN:  Change the vRealize Automation Appliance Host Name

Additional Information

• VAMI web services are hosted through an implementation of lighttpd: https://www.lighttpd.net/
• VAMI is considered a management plane for configuration of the appliance and is not meant to be load balanced as each node contains unique configurable variables such as hostname and IP.
  • A VIP address should not be used with any DNS alias when accessing the VAMI
• Do not load balance port 5480
• Certificates are located under: /opt/vmware/etc/lighttpd/server.pem
• Embedded vRealize Orchestrator Control Center web services hosted on port 8283 shares a certificate with the above
  • It is recommended to use the same certificate applied to the :443 tenant portal for the VAMI web services
    • This will allow the redirect to 8283 for the HTML 5 client to load in client browsers without issues

Use vRealize Automation Appliance Management for these tasks:

• View the status of registered services.
• View system information and reboot or shutdown the appliance.
• Manage participation in the Customer Experience Improvement Program.
• View network status.
• View update status and install updates.
• Manage administration settings.
• Manage vRealize Automation host settings.
• Manage SSO settings.
• Manage product licenses.
• Configure the vRealize Automation Postgres database.
• Configure vRealize Automation messaging.
• Configure vRealize Automation logging.
• Install IaaS components.
• Migrate from an existing vRealize Automation installation.
• Manage IaaS component certificates.
• Configure Xenon service.