WCP service fails to start in vCenter Server 7.x

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article provides a solution to the specific issue outlined under "Symptoms".

Symptoms:

• the WCP (Workload Control Plane) service fails to start
• as a result, you cannot set any ESXi host in maintenance mode using vCenter Server
• wcp core dump files are written in /var/core
• /var/log/vmware/wcp/wcpsvc.log contains the following entries:

2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z error wcp [opID=vapi] Security Context missing in the request
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] SecurityContext not passed in the request. Creating an empty security context
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] opId was not present for the request
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Handling new request with input {"STRUCTURE":{"operation-input":{}}}
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Service specific authorization scheme for com.vmware.vapi.std.introspection.service not found.
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Service specific authorization scheme for com.vmware.vapi.std.introspection.service not found.
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Could not find package specific auth scheme for com.vmware.vapi.std.introspection.service
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Authn scheme Id is not provided but NO AUTH is allowed hence invoking the operation
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z error wcp [opID=vapi] SecurityCtx doesn't have property AUTHN_IDENTITY
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z error wcp [opID=vapi] Invalid authentication result
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Skipping authorization checks, because there is no authentication data for: com.vmware.vapi.std.introspection.service.list
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Searching for service com.vmware.vapi.std.introspection.service
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Searching for operation list
2020-12-23T15:42:42.559Z debug wcp [opID=vapi] Validating input

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

This issue is caused by an incorrect entry for the reverse HTTP proxy port in /etc/vmware/wcp/wcpsvc.yaml/wcpsvc.yaml

Resolution

• Connect to VCSA per SSH
• change in /etc/vmware/wcp/

# cd /etc/vmware/wcp

• create a backup of wcpsvc.yaml 

# cp wcpsvc.yaml wcpsvc.yaml.bak

• edit wcpsvc.yaml and change the follow entry, from:

rhttpproxy_port: {rhttpproxy.ext.port2}

    to

rhttpproxy_port: 443

    as shown in the following screenshot:
 

 

Note: Please ensure that there is a space between the colon (":") and "443"
 

• To apply this change, restart the WCP service:

# service-control --restart wcp