Depot sync fails with standard URL.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

The depot sync with the standard URL based on http-protocol failed.

Error: "Failed to update depot VMWare Public Image: URLs http://.../vmw-depot-index.xml could not be found in existing depots"

Environment

VCSA 7.0.x & 8.0

 

Cause

Root cause has not been inspected in depth. Best quick assumption would be the number of redirects exceed a hop count. Using http will usually trigger a redirect to https. After migration to Broadcom, the repository had Broadcom server and CDN configs in the end. This resulted in a considerable number of redirects. Assumption is: the redirect from http-to-https was just one above a programmed limit. The assumption is based on the fact that a manual download of the depot control file using curl worked in all cases from the VCSA cli. Curl has a very large allowance for redirects.

Resolution

Use the same URL but with https protocol instead of http. In order to do this it is necessary to configure a new online source and delete the old one, as a configured source cannot be edited.

Additional Information

It is a good idea to verify that the domain-name of the URL can be resolved into an IP address, even if a proxy is in use.