Retrieving token from vCenter Server fails with http 404 error

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Retrieving token from vCenter Server fails if non default domain/tenant is used for Single Sign-On (SSO).
• The SSO client URL, for example: https://hostname|IPaddress/STS/STSService, fails with this error:
  
  Error 404 not found

Environment

VMware vSphere Web Services SDK 5.5

Cause

In vCenter SSO 6.x, SSO domain name can be anything as opposed to vsphere.local in 5.5.

There is a default tenant in SSO with vSphere SSO domain name. For example, if vSphere SSO domain name is vsphere.dev then there is a default tenant vsphere.dev. When STS url does not specify tenant name, retrieve token should go to default tenant.

This issue occurs due to a bug. When non default domain/tenant is used for SSO, STS takes the default value vsphere.local.

Resolution

To work around this issue when non default domain/tenant is used for SSO, explicitly set the domain/tenant name in STS request:

For example:

If vsphere.dev is the domain name then the URL should be similar to:

https://hostname|IPaddress/STS/STSService/vsphere.dev