Error: "Failed to connect to VMware depot with the provided user credentials. Cause: {0}" when using Windows Offline Depot in VCF
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Error: "Failed to connect to VMware depot with the provided user credentials. Cause: {0}" when using Windows Offline Depot in VCF

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Article ID: 427952

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Updated On:

Products

VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

  • When attempting to connect SDDC Manager to a custom Windows-based offline depot (IIS), the connection fails with the following error in the UI: Failed to connect to VMware depot with the provided user credentials. Cause: {0}
  • The /var/log/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-debug.log file indicates a 404 Not Found error during API calls to the depot, particularly when fetching the manifest or index files:
    DEBUG [vcf_lcm] Executing HEAD /PROD2/evo/vmw/index.v3
    ERROR [vcf_lcm] Got Http error[404] while downloading manifest index [/evo/vmw/index.v3]
  • Manual validation using curl from the SDDC Manager to the depot URL also returns a 404 error:
    # curl -k -u depo_user:PASSWORD https://FULL_PATH

    !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>

    <title>404 - File or directory not found.</title>
    <style>
    </head>
    <body>
    <div id="header"><h1>Server Error</h1></div>
    <div id="content">
     <div class="content-container"><fieldset>
      <h2>404 - File or directory not found.</h2>
      <h3>The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.</h3>
     </fieldset></div>
    </div>
    </body>
    </html>

Environment

 

  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.x

  • SDDC Manager

  • Offline Bundle Depot hosted on Microsoft Windows Server (IIS)

  • Bundles downloaded via lcm-bundle-transfer-util (OBTU)



 

Cause

This issue is caused by one or both of the following misconfigurations:

  1. Path Mismatch: The default directory paths defined in the SDDC Manager configuration file (application-prod.properties) do not match the actual directory structure created by the Bundle Transfer Utility on the IIS web server.

    • Default config expects: /PROD2/evo/vmw

    • Actual OBTU structure: /PROD/COMP/SDDC_MANAGER_VCF (or similar, depending on the download token/version).

  2. Missing MIME Types: The Windows IIS server is not configured to serve specific file extensions (e.g., .sig, .v3, .json, .manifest), causing it to reject requests for these files with a 404 error even if the files exist.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must align the SDDC Manager configuration with the IIS path structure and ensure IIS serves the required file types.

Step 1: Configure IIS MIME Types

On the Windows IIS Server acting as the depot:

  1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

  2. Select the site hosting the offline depot.

  3. Double-click MIME Types.

  4. Ensure the following extensions are added. If missing, add them with the MIME type application/octet-stream (or text/plain for logs/json):

    • .sig

    • .v3

    • .json

    • .manifest

    • .tar

    • .ovf

    • .ova

    • .vib

  5. Restart the IIS Website.

Step 2: Update SDDC Manager Properties

  1. SSH into the SDDC Manager as vcf and switch to root.

  2. Take a backup of the properties file:
    # cp /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/conf/application-prod.properties /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/conf/application-prod.properties.bak

  3. Open the file for editing:
    # vi /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/conf/application-prod.properties

  4. Locate the LCM DEPOT PROPERTIES section.

  5. Update the path variables to match the actual relative path on your IIS server.

    • Note: The paths below are examples based on standard OBTU output. Verify your specific IIS folder structure.
      Change from (Default):

      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.rootDir=/PROD2
      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.repoDir=/evo/vmw
      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.lcmManifestDir=/evo/vmw/lcm/manifest
      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.lcmProductVersionCatalogDir=/evo/vmw/lcm/productVersionCatalog

      Change to (Example matching OBTU 5.x structure):

      # If your IIS root is /inetpub/wwwroot/offline_depot, and OBTU put files in /inetpub/wwwroot/offline_depot/<TOKEN>/PROD
      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.rootDir=/<YOUR_DEPOT_TOKEN_OR_PATH>/PROD
      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.repoDir=/COMP/SDDC_MANAGER_VCF
      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.lcmManifestDir=/COMP/SDDC_MANAGER_VCF/lcm/manifest
      lcm.depot.adapter.remote.lcmProductVersionCatalogDir=/COMP/SDDC_MANAGER_VCF/lcm/productVersionCatalog

  6. Save and exit the file.

  7. Restart the LCM service:

    # systemctl restart lcm

  8. Retry the depot connection from the SDDC Manager UI.

Additional Information

 

 

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