Importing a Certificate into VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle fails with error: "Failed to read key file"

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to import a signed certificate file into VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle, the process fails with the error message: "Failed to read key file"
  
  
  
  
• Additionally, the following exception is recorded in the /var/log/vrlcm/vmware_vrlcm.log

####-##-#####:43:07.512Z ERROR vrlcm[1783] [http-nio-8080-exec-8] [c.v.v.1.1.c.InputValidationExceptionHandlingController] -- Handling PKIException with error message: Failed to read key file

Environment

VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.18.x

Cause

 

• This issue occurs when the certificate chain file includes either an encrypted private key or an SSH-RSA private key. VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle is unable to properly decode these key formats, resulting in a failure to read the certificate metadata
  
  
• The Encrypted private key in PEM format looks something like this:
  
  -----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQE...
...
-----END ENCRYPTED  PRIVATE KEY-----
  
  
• The SSH-RSA private key in PEM format looks something like this:
  
  -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIBIjgkqhkiG9w0BAQE...
...
-----END RSA  PRIVATE KEY-----

 

 

Resolution

To resolve this issue, provide a valid private key file in the certificate chain file and retry importing the file