vCenter services fail to start after restore from backup due to certificate expiration

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

vCenter is restored from an older backup but the system would not start properly.

Cause

Looking at the /var/log/vmware/vpxd/vpxd.log file we are seeing when it is trying to start that it is attempting to reach out to another of the services and authenticate using certificates and failing.

Resolution

When investigating certificate issues in vCenter we recommend using the vCert tool which can be downloaded from KB article vCert - expired certificate replacement script.

1. After the vCert tool is installed on the vCenter per the KB article run the option 1 to check the state of the environment.
2. Any certificates showing as expired can be replaced as per the vCert KB article.
3. Once the certificates are corrected and the services are restarted and running go to the VAMI on port 5480 and confirm the restore completed.