Open Live Site Recovery Option Grayed Out Due to VLR Appliance Hostname and Certificate Mismatch

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms: 

• After converging to VMware Live Site Recovery 9.0.4, the Open Live Site Recovery option appears grayed out in the interface

Validation Steps :

• The following checks confirm that basic configuration is functional:

  • Forward and reverse DNS lookups resolve correctly for the VLR appliance.

  • The VLR appliance certificate is configured with a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).

  • The appliance is deployed using a short hostname instead of an FQDN.

 

Environment

• VMware Live Site Recovery 9.x

Cause

The VLR appliance is deployed using a short hostname, which does not match the Subject Alternative Name values in the appliance certificate. Because of this mismatch, hostname verification fails during secure communication, causing the Open Live Site Recovery option to remain grayed out.

HMS logs (/var/log/vmware/hms/hms.0000*.log) show hostname verification failures:

2025-11-10 00:31:32.597 DEBUG net.impl.PinnedCertificatesHttpConfigFactory [hms-vlsi-client-thread-8084] (..net.impl.PinnedCertificatesHttpConfigFactory$1) {operationID=f3c7247d-b593-40ab-a42c-31e2f191b3c4-HMS-278269} [] | [hmssrv] certificate verification succeeded for remote server (a3b85675-#####e22ea3d) at u#######vlsr.##.####.local (hostname verification: failed)
2025-11-10 00:32:32.609 DEBUG net.impl.PinnedCertificatesHttpConfigFactory [hms-vlsi-client-thread-8107] (..net.impl.PinnedCertificatesHttpConfigFactory$1) {operationID=537fdbe7-fc23-4cbc-9315-0e2e7f4fbade-HMS-278352} [] | [hmssrv] certificate verification succeeded for remote server (a3b85######2ea3d) at u#######vlsr.##.#####.local (hostname verification: failed)

DR plugin logs (/var/log/vmware/dr-client-plugin/drplugin.log) report an incorrect hostname:

2025-11-07 12:00:46,996 [dr-config-thread-11] WARN  com.vmware.dr.plugin.utils.ConnectionUtils 8cc4a02c-######d247b7  - Problem occurred while checking service status at https://#######vlsr.##.######.local:443/vrms
java.io.IOException: HTTPS hostname wrong:  should be <######vlsr.##.######.local>

The appliance hostname confirms it is using a short name:

root@vlr [ /home/admin ]# hostnamectl
 Static hostname: shortname
       Icon name: computer-vm
         Chassis: vm 🖴
      Machine ID: 52ecda3877#########bb2a5d0530ee3
         Boot ID: d9244066d###########15dba6a9700d
  Virtualization: vmware
Operating System: VMware Photon OS/Linux
          Kernel: Linux 6.1.147-3.ph5
    Architecture: x86-64
 Hardware Vendor: VMware, Inc.
  Hardware Model: VMware7,1
Firmware Version: VMW71.00V.23553139.B64.2403260936
   Firmware Date: Tue 2024-03-26

Resolution

The issue resolves by updating the VLR appliance hostname to its FQDN.

1. Update the hostname using the following command:
   
    # hostnamectl set-hostname FQDN


2. Verify that the /etc/hostname file reflects the updated FQDN.
3. Reconfigure the VLR appliance after updating the hostname to ensure all services recognize the change.