Service vmware-trustmanagement unable to start.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Unable to login to vCenter Server using domain account credentials
Service restart on vcsa hangs on vmware-trustmanagement, then it results in multiple dependent services failing wcp, hvc, observability etc

# service-control --status 
Running:
applmgmt lookupsvc lwsmd observability-vapi pschealth vc-ws1a-broker vlcm vmafdd vmcad vmdird vmonapi vmware-analytics vmware-certificateauthority vmware-certificatemanagement vmware-cis-license vmware-eam vmware-envoy vmware-envoy-hgw vmware-envoy-sidecar vmware-infraprofile vmware-perfcharts vmware-postgres-archiver vmware-rhttpproxy vmware-sca vmware-sps vmware-stsd vmware-topologysvc vmware-updatemgr vmware-vapi-endpoint vmware-vmon vmware-vpostgres vmware-vpxd vmware-vpxd-svcs vmware-vsan-health vmware-vsm vsphere-ui vstats vtsdb
Stopped:
observability vmcam vmware-content-library vmware-hvc vmware-imagebuilder vmware-netdumper vmware-pod vmware-rbd-watchdog vmware-trustmanagement vmware-vcha vmware-vdtc wcp

Environment

vSphere 8.x
SDDC 5.X 

Cause

Restarting services and tailing vmon.log points out a missing file/ permission issue 

# tail -f /var/log/vmware/vmon/vmon.log | grep -i trustmanagement
2025-11-10T10:55:32.153Z Wa(03) host-2148 <trustmanagement> Service api-health command's stderr: Error getting service health. Error: Failed to read health xml file: /var/lib/trustmanagement/trustmanagement-health.xml. Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/lib/trustmanagement/trustmanagement-health.xml'
2025-11-10T10:55:32.173Z Wa(03) host-2148 <trustmanagement> Service api healthcheck command returned unknown exit code 1
2025-11-10T10:55:32.173Z In(05) host-2148 <trustmanagement> Re-check service health since it is still initializing.
2025-11-10T10:55:32.173Z In(05) host-2148 <event-pub> Constructed command: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmonEventPublisher.py --eventdata trustmanagement,UNKNOWN,UNHEALTHY,1

Resolution

Compare the Folder permissions for the Folder with a running vCenter 

root@BAD_VCenter [ /var/lib/trustmanagement ]# ls -althr
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x.    3 root            root4.0K Apr 3 2024 tomcat. 8080                            the Tomcat folder permissions are wrong
drwxr-xr-x.   52 root
-rw-r -- r --  1 trustmanagement trustmanagement 387 Nov 25 13:16 trustmanagement-health.xml and the XLM file is missing
drwxr-xr-x.    3 trustmanagement trustmanagement 4.OK Nov 25 13:16 .

root@GOOD_VCenter[ /var/lib/trustmanagement ]# ls -althr
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x.    3 trustmanagement trustmanagement 4.0K Apr 3 2024 tomcat. 8080
drwxr-xr-x.   52 root
-rw-r -- r --  1 trustmanagement trustmanagement 387 Nov 25 13:16 trustmanagement-health.xml
drwxr-xr-x.    3 trustmanagement trustmanagement 4.OK Nov 25 13:16 .

Mode on folder back one folder to /var/lib, and give recursive permissions for the trustmanagement Folder

root@GOOD_VCenter[ /var/lib/trustmanagement ]# cd ../
root@GOOD_VCenter[ /var/lib/ ] # chown -R trustmanagement:trustmanagement trustmanagement/

Restarting the service should create the trustmanagement-health.xml file if permission are correct