Powering on an encrypted virtual machine or a VM with vTPM fails in vSphere 7.0 when attempted with a non-Administrator user

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When trying to power on a virtual machine that is encrypted, for example because it has been configured with a virtual TPM (vTPM), the task fails with an error message:

Permission to perform this operation was denied. NoPermission.message.format

• When trying to open a remote console for the virtual machine, the following error is shown:

KMS Error: Unable to connect to MKS: Permission to perform this operation was denied.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the user who initiated the power-on task does not have the required permissions to access encrypted VMs respectively read the encryption keys used to encrypt the VM. For these operations, "Cryptographic operations" privileges are required.

Resolution

To prevent this problem, ensure that the role for the user includes the following privileges:

• Cryptographic operations > Direct Access
• Cryptographic operations > Read KMS information

If the VM is hosted in a cluster with DRS enabled, the following privilege is required as well:

• Cryptographic operations > Migrate