Unable to log in to vCenter using Active Directory (AD) credentials in the format [email protected]

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Invalid credentials error while attempting to login to vCenter using domain account in the UPN format [email protected] despite the credentials being correct.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server

Cause

The Identity source is set to default in vCenter Single Sign-On for the users to login without specifying the domain name. When users attempt to log in with [email protected], the system is not recognizing the domain portion of the credentials, leading to authentication failure.

Resolution

This is an expected behaviour, when the Identity source is set to default in vCenter Single Sign-On users need to login using only the username without the domain name. The vCenter will take the domain name as default while logging in. 

When a user logs in to a vCenter Server from the vSphere Client, the login behavior depends on whether the user is in the domain that is set as the default identity source.

• Users who are in the default domain can log in with their user name and password.

• Users in a non-default domain added to vCenter Single Sign-On can access vCenter Server by specifying their domain during login.

  • Including a domain name prefix, for example, MYDOMAIN\user1

  • Including the domain, for example, [email protected]