Certificate load with unreadable character during replacing vCenter machine SSL certificate

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Failed to replace vCenter machine SSL certificate in vCenter web UI. 

Certificate load with unreadable character.

Error message shows: "not a valid PEM formatted Machine SSL certificate"

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.3

Cause

Certificate was in DER Encoding not Base 64 which is required in vCenter.

Resolution

Convert Certificate from DER Encoding to Base 64 with following command.

# openssl x509 -inform DER -in input.cer -out output.pem

Additional Information

Process to obtain vSphere certificates from a Microsoft Certificate Authority:
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=2112014