Powering on a Cluster VM in Cloud Director fails with error: "unable to find valid certification path to requested target"

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• When trying to power-on a cluster VM in VCD, it fails with below error:

"[ 11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 ] Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.
 - Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.
 - PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
 - PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
 - unable to find valid certification path to requested target"

• The VM console is NOT accessible through vCenter server.
• In the vcloud-container-debug.log, you see entries similar to:

| DEBUG    | pool-jetty-790775         | ServerWebSocket                | Decoded ticket host=HOST-FQDN, payload=com.vmware.con
soleproxy.ticket.TicketPayload@10b786b6 {userName: system; vmName: Cluster storage new-11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 - (ORG-NAME-ID-NOCAS)-Cluster storage new; v
mId: vm-ID; orgName: ORG-ID; destHostThumbprint: 76:AB:48:1F:40:51:E6:13:EE:DE:F6:8A:0A:FD:C9:66:8A:EC:CB:45;vcId: 11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 ;ticketType: webmks},
ESX ticket=b27bd3fcea285ced [server: [L=/IP-Address:443 R=/IP-Address:51108]] [client: not-connected] |
| DEBUG    | pool-jetty-790775         | ServerWebSocket                | Connected to ESX wss://HOST-FQDN:443/ticket/b27bd3fce
a285ced successfully [server: [L=/IP-Address:443 R=/IP-Address:51108]] [client: [id: 0xa8494dd5, L:/IP-Address:52206 - R:HOST-FQDN/IP-Address:
443]

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.x.x.

Cause

This issue occurs if the certificates are expired for the underlying Host or the certificates are NOT listed under trusted certificates for Cloud Director.

Resolution

• Renew certificate for the underlying ESXi host.
• Re-authenticate VCD with vCenter server to re-establish the trust.
• Power on the VM.

Additional Information

Follow the instructions to Renew and Refresh ESXi host certificate in vCenter.