Removing Phantom Supervisor Licenses After TKG Migration in vCenter

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

After migrating from TKGs to TKGm, vCenter may display "There are expired or expiring licenses in your inventory" warnings due to lingering evaluation licenses under "Supervisors" that cannot be removed through the standard licensing interface.

Environment

• vSphere vCenter Server
• Environment previously using TKGs (Tanzu Kubernetes Grid service) migrated to TKGm
• Workload Management previously enabled

Cause

During TKG migration, license entries can remain in vCenter's LDAP structure even after service removal. These phantom entries persist in the LicenseService LDAP tree but are not removable through standard vCenter interfaces.

Resolution

1. To create a safe roll-back point in case of any mistakes
   1. Find the ESXi host or vCenter Server managing the affected vCenter Server VM
   2. Power off the affected vCenter Server VM
   3. Create a snapshot of the vCenter Server VM
   4. you can now power the vCenter Server VM back on again
2. Verify the phantom license entry:
   1. Connect to vCenter via SSH
   2. Run the following command:

         /opt/likewise/bin/ldapsearch -h localhost "dc=vsphere,dc=local" -s sub -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vsphere,dc=local" -W "cn=AssetEntity_wcp-domain-*"

   3. When prompted, enter the [email protected] password
3. Remove the phantom license:
   1. Execute the following command:

      /opt/likewise/bin/ldapdelete -h localhost -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vsphere,dc=local" -W "cn=AssetEntity_wcp-domain-[ID],cn=LicenseService,cn=services,dc=vsphere,dc=local" -v

   2. Replace [ID] with the specific AssetEntity ID from step 1
   3. Enter the [email protected] password when prompted
      
      
4. Verify removal:
   1. Check vCenter's licensing interface
   2. Confirm the expired license warning is resolved

Additional Information

• No vCenter restart is required after removing the license entry
• Before removal, verify no active workloads depend on the license
• For environments with linked vCenters, check each server for phantom licenses