Images are not available and only show from publisher content library for Aria Automation

Products

VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

This document will provide instructions to make all images visible, regardless of content library status in Aria Automation.

Symptoms:

Template images do not all appear, particularly if the images are hosted in content libraries with naming duplication.
In Aria Automation creating a new image mapping, subscriber templates will not be visible. Only publisher templates are now visible.

Environment

VMware Aria Automation 8.x

Cause

Note: This is an expected behavior

Duplicate entries are no longer recognized in synchronized content libraries or images with identical names.
Images are now enumerated, with only the latest updated version appearing if they are hosted via a content library.

Resolution

This is an expected behavior, however if there is a requirement where all the image need to be visible for Aria Automation. You can follow the workaround.

Impact/Risks:
Changing the behavior as described in the workaround below will remove image enumeration, allowing visibility of all templates via Aria Automation image mappings. This may be beneficial in some circumstances such as, if deployments take too long because the current image is hosted in a remote location from the VM host, but can make image management more complex.

It should be noted that this change is reversible, and does not require a full restart of all Aria Automation services, only the provisioning app service pod, which is completed within a few minutes.

Workaround:

Take simultaneous snapshots of the Aria Automation appliance(s) before making any changes.
SSH into a Aria Automation appliance
Edit the provisioning-service-app pod on the deployment with the following command
```
kubectl -n prelude edit deploy provisioning-service-app
```

Note: This step will open the vi editor. Scroll to the following section, or type "/JAVA_OPTS" (without the quotation marks) and hit enter to scroll directly to it.

      - name: JAVA_OPTS
          value: |-
            -Dhttps.proxyHost=$(JAVA_PROXY_HOST)
            -Dhttp.proxyHost=$(JAVA_PROXY_HOST)
             ....

Add -Dcl.vmtemplate.enable.enumeration=false to the option list.

Note: To edit, move the cursor to the line where you want to make the addition, and press the i key on the keyboard to enter insert mode. Press Enter to new line and type in the line specified.

Note: BE VERY CAREFUL WITH SPACES. DO NOT USE TABS, SPACES ONLY. It must be aligned with other options. An example is provided below:

      - name: JAVA_OPTS
          value: |-
            -Dcl.vmtemplate.enable.enumeration=false
            -Dhttps.proxyHost=$(JAVA_PROXY_HOST)
            -Dhttp.proxyHost=$(JAVA_PROXY_HOST)
            ....

Save the changes, press the escape key on the keyboard, and then save the change by pressing :wq. If you make a mistake you can exit without saving by pressing :q! instead.

Note: Kubernetes will redeploy the pod with new settings enabled.

Monitor the provisioning-service-app pod restart by running watch kubectl get pods -n prelude within the Aria Automation SSH session. Once the pod is restarted and in a ready state 1/1, go to the next step.
Login to Cloud Assembly followed by Infrastructure > Connections > Cloud Accounts.
For each cloud account, re-trigger image enumeration by clicking SYNC IMAGES button.
After image enumeration completes, check image mappings, you should now see all local subscriber image items.

Additional Information

Aria Automation Documentation for how Content library works for image mapping