SFTP Settings configuration Fails in VCF Fleet Management with error " SFTP Configuration failed on Cluster. Check the cluster logs for more details"

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)
• VCF Automation

Issue/Introduction

• When configuring SFTP settings under Fleet Management > Lifecycle > Settings, the deployment to the Identity Broker (VIDB) and Automation (VCFA) clusters fails.
• This failure prevents critical operations, such as patching Identity Manager and Automation to newer versions (e.g., 9.0.1). 
• Although initiating "retry" for the deployment may appear to complete successfully, the status for the SFTP settings will persistently show as "FAILED". 
• The following error is observed: "SFTP Configuration failed on Cluster. Check the cluster logs for more details".

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Fleet Management 9.x
VCF Identity Broker (VIDB) 9.x
VCF Automation (VCFA) 9.x

Cause

The SFTP password configured in Fleet Management contains specific special characters (!, #, %, &) that are not properly escaped or handled by the internal deployment script. The script misinterprets these characters as shell commands, which prevents the successful configuration of SFTP secrets.

Resolution

SFTP password needs to be modified to avoid problematic special characters and the SFTP configuration must be updated with new password.

1. Access SFTP Settings:
   Navigate to Fleet Management > Lifecycle > Settings > SFTP Settings within your VCF operations Fleet manager console.
   
   
2. Modify SFTP Password:
   Change the SFTP password to one that primarily uses alphanumeric characters. Ensure password starts with a letter and only has the special characters in this list "~@#%^,./".
   
   
3. Save and Re-configure Settings:
   Save the updated SFTP settings. This action will trigger a new configuration attempt to the Identity Broker and Automation clusters.
   
   
4. Verify configuration Status:
   Monitor the status of the SFTP settings in Fleet Management to ensure they now show a successful configuration status.
   
   
5. Proceed with Operations:
   Once the SFTP settings are successfully configured, you can proceed with performing backups, and then applying patches to both VIDB and Automation platforms.