No certificate is displayed in the certificate management page for the ESXi host.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When browsing to the following location in the vCenter, no certificate is displayed: 

1. Browse to the host in the vSphere Client inventory.
2. Click Configure.
3. Under System, click Certificate.

Environment

ESXI 7.x

Cause

This issue can occur if the vpxd certificate mode is set to "thumbprint".

Resolution

Take a snapshot of the vCenter before making changes.

To resolve around this issue, change the vpxd certificate mode to "vmca" or "custom" depending on your environment. 

The vpxd.certmgmt.mode is located in the advanced settings of the vCenter, and can be edited with the steps below::

1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the vCenter Server instance.
2. Select the Configure tab.
3. Select Advanced Settings.
4. Click Edit Settings.
5. In the Name field, type a name for the setting, in this situation it is: vpxd.certmgmt.mode
6. Edit the setting to either "vmca" or "custom" depending on your environment. 
7. Restart the vCenter services after saving the change.
8. Checked the vSphere HA status in the impacted cluster to confirm vSphere HA is configured

NOTE: Ensure to restart services to reflect the change:

service-control --stop --all && service-control --start --all

Once the above steps are done, the certificate should be displayed and you can then renew the certificate if needed.