Unknown accounts showing under Users and Groups in vsphere.local domain as RepValidTestUser

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

Under Administration >> Users and Groups (vsphere.local domain), RepValidTestUser-vCenterNameUUID user accounts are showing up.

Environment

• vCenter 7.x with ELM
• vCenter 8.x with ELM

Cause

• These accounts are created when creating support bundle to verify whether vmdir replication is working across vCenters in Enhanced Linked Mode(ELM).

• VMDIR service log will show entries similar to below while generating vCenter Support Bundle

/var/log/vmware/vmdird/vmdird-syslog.log

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.#####+00:00 info vmdird  t@139685137438464: Add Entry (cn=RepValidTestUser-<VC_FQDN>-<ID>,cn=Users,dc=vsphere,dc=local, EID 0)(from 127.0.0.1)(by cn=<VC_FQDN>,ou=Domain Controllers,dc=vsphere,dc=local)(via Ext)(USN ####,0)

Resolution

• These accounts are created on one vCenter and then replicated to the other vCenters in the ELM domain to validate replication. Once the replication test is complete, the accounts are normally removed automatically.

• Manually delete the account if it is still showing up in vSphere Client by following procedure documented in "Delete a vCenter Single Sign-On User".