"There are expired or expiring licenses in your inventory" alerts exist in vCenter UI in an environment with VSAN Cluster

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• The Evaluation license assigned parameter is set to “Yes”, even though no vSAN cluster/other objects appears to be associated with the evaluation license in vCenter.

• vSAN cluster section of evaluation license shows "No items found"

Environment

vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

This issue is caused by a stale evaluation license reference in the vCenter database, resulting in a cosmetic alert with no functional impact.

Resolution

Follow the steps below to identify the vSAN cluster object associated with the evaluation license:

1. Collect the LDIF file using the following command:

ldapsearch -x -LLL -H ldap://localhost -b "cn=LicenseService,cn=Services,dc=vsphere,dc=local" -D "cn=administrator,cn=Users,dc=vsphere,dc=local" -w "SSOPWD" > /var/core/license.ldif

2. Open the generated license.ldif file in a text editor and search for the keyword: vmwLicSvcAssetLicenseId: EvaluationLicenseId

3. In the matching entries, locate the parameter vmwLicSvcAssetName, which indicates the cluster name assigned with the evaluation license.

4. Update the license on the identified cluster to the appropriate valid license and re-log in to vCenter.