vSAN Snapshot Service appliance not configured and plugin does not deploy

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• vSAN Snapshot Service Appliance deployed on vCenter but the service is not available for use as plugin does not appear on vSphere Client.

Environment

VMware vSAN 8.0U3 or later (ESA)

VMware vSAN Snapshot Service Appliance

Cause

• This issue occurs because the snapservice has failed during startup, due to the format of the vCenter password which was entered during deployment of the appliance.

• When trying to bring up the snapservice manually using following command from SSH of Snapshot Appliance - /usr/bin/docker-compose -f /opt/vmware/snapservice/app/docker-compose.yaml up
  The following error is seen:

  .
.
app-snapservice-1  | Error reading config file /config/snapservice_config.yaml: yaml: line 13: did not find expected key
app-snapservice-1  | Snapshot Service app initialization error: could not build arguments for function "go.uber.org/fx".(*App).constructCustomLogger.func2
.
.

• If the /opt/vmware/snapservice/app/deployment/compose_snapservice_config.yaml config file is validated, under the "vsphereConfig" on line 13:
  username: "[email protected]"
password: "#######"#####"

• Since the value for password is encapsulated within double quotes, having a double quote within the password causes a syntax error.

Resolution

vSAN Engineering Team is aware of this issue and fix will be rolled out in the next release.

Workaround:

There are two workarounds available at the moment:

1. Either the vCenter password can be changed to one without a double quote. This can then be used during deployment of the Snapshot appliance.

   If the appliance is already deployed, update the config file on the Snapshot Appliance with this new password in file /opt/vmware/snapservice/app/deployment/compose_snapservice_config.yaml for the parameter password under "vsphereConfig".

2. Or the /opt/vmware/snapservice/app/deployment/compose_snapservice_config.yaml file can be changed to use single quotes instead of double quotes to hold the parameter values.

Post this the snapservice bring up script can be run on the appliance to configure the appliance and deploy the plugin: /usr/bin/docker-compose -f /opt/vmware/snapservice/app/docker-compose.yaml up