Unable to SSH to vCenter using AD credentials

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

SSH using Active Directory credentials fails with the following error in applmgmt.log:

/var/log/vmware/applmgmt/applmgmt.log: 

yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss PM UTC [3939940]ERROR:vmware.appliance.extensions.authentication.authentication_sso:urlopen() failed with exception <urlopen error timed out>
yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss PM UTC [3939940]DEBUG:vmware.appliance.extensions.authentication.authentication_sso:Downloading trusted certs from url : https://<vcfqdn server name>.<domain>.<root domain>/idm/tenant/hkgproduction-sso.local/certificates?scope=TENANT
yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss PM UTC [3939940]ERROR:vmware.appliance.extensions.authentication.authentication_sso:Unhandled exception during SAML token validation
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/urllib/request.py", line 1348, in do_open
    h.request(req.get_method(), req.selector, req.data, headers,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 1283, in request
    self._send_request(method, url, body, headers, encode_chunked)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 1329, in _send_request
    self.endheaders(body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 1278, in endheaders
    self._send_output(message_body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 1038, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 976, in send
    self.connect()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 1448, in connect
    super().connect()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 952, in connect
    self._tunnel()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 921, in _tunnel
    (version, code, message) = response._read_status()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/http/client.py", line 279, in _read_status
    line = str(self.fp.readline(_MAXLINE + 1), "iso-8859-1")
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/socket.py", line 705, in readinto
    return self._sock.recv_into(b)
TimeoutError: timed out

Environment

vCenter Server 8.0 

Cause

Variable in the /etc/sysconfig/proxy file was formatted incorrectly. 

 

Resolution

Take a snapshot of the vCenter VM then edit the following via SSH: 

In vCenter, remove the leading "." from the NO_PROXY environmental variable in /etc/sysconfig/proxy as below: 

Example of incorrect format: 
NO_PROXY=localhost,127.0.0.1,.*.<domain>.<root domain>

Example of correct format: 

NO_PROXY=localhost,127.0.0.1,*.<domain>.<root domain>