Unable to view another vCenter in Linked mode

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When logged into vCenter A via the vSphere UI, vCenter B is visible, but when logged into vCenter B, vCenter A is not visible

Environment

vCenter 8.x

vCenter 7.x

Cause

vCenterA tries to login to vCenterB at the below timestamp:

2024-07-19T09:43:57.994+07:00] [INFO ] vim-authentication-pool-107  70000013 100005 200005 com.vmware.vise.vim.commons.vcservice.impl.LinkedVcGroupImpl      Created a linked VC group: [https://vCenterA:443/sdk (b876d3c9-6402-42bf-b9a4-6fbf42a7e2de), https://vCenterB:443/sdk (86c49909-099e-45b3-9927-67c1f83f944c)]
Startup VC: https://vCenterA:443/sdk (b876d3c9-6402-42bf-b9a4-6fbf42a7e2de)

The login request fails with the below error:

[2024-07-19T09:44:01.033+07:00] [ERROR] linkedVcGroup-pool-108       70000013 100005 200005 com.vmware.vise.util.concurrent.ExecutorUtil                      A task crashed: com.vmware.vise.vim.commons.vcservice.impl.LinkedVcGroupImpl$1@4b81ade7 java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: (vim.fault.InvalidLogin) {
   faultCause = null,
   faultMessage = null

Caused by: com.vmware.vim.binding.vim.fault.InvalidLogin: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.

On the vCenterB, this login request is seen at the below timestamp.

2024-07-19T09:33:14.263+07:00 info vpxd[05600] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=lys3i72g-290-auto-8a-h5:70000013-f3] [VpxLRO] -- BEGIN lro-8259 -- SessionManager -- vim.SessionManager.loginByToken -- 52bbe21d-b92c-adf1-4145-1eadb7ed3700
2024-07-19T09:33:14.264+07:00 error vpxd[05600] [Originator@6876 sub=MoSessionMgr opID=lys3i72g-290-auto-8a-h5:70000013-f3] [SessionManagerMo::LoginByToken] Couldn't find the SAML token due to N9SsoClient14ParseExceptionE(Token start date is in the future: 

Issue is observed due to time skew of around 10 mins between vCenters causing the request fail as the above.

Resolution

Fix the time skew between the vCenters