VCF deployment fails while configuring NSX Manager backup: 'Authentication Failed'

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

VCF deployment fails while configuring the NSX Manager backup with the error 'Authentication failed on file server' due to incorrect backup server credentials. A manual attempt to establish an SFTP connection to the SDDC-M using the 'backup' user credentials retrieved via lookup_passwords also fails with the same 'Authentication failed' error.

Environment

VCF 9.0

Cause

The 'backup' user password stored in the inventory is out of sync with the system password, resulting in authentication failures.

Resolution

Manually synchronize the 'backup' user password with the value returned by lookup_passwords. Follow the steps below:

1. SSH into the SDDC-M as root.

2. Retrieve the 'backup' user password via the lookup_passwords.

3. Set the 'backup' user password to the retrieved value using the 'passwd' command.

passwd backup

4. Retry the failed Create-SDDC or VCF Deployment workflow.