Frequent connections to IPs 172.66.0.165 and 162.159.140.167 originated from vCenter.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

External firewall reports constant attempts to connect on port 443 to the IPs  172.66.0.165 and 162.159.140.167.

Packets are being blocked by firewall, therefore it records multiple dropped connections on it's reports.

Environment

vCenter Server Appliance

Cause

These are IP addresses of Broadcom online depot (dl.broadcom.com and scapi.vmware.com)

The requests are made by design to allow vCenter to obtain information that will be used to compose the panels.

For instance: information about the HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) that can be used by vSAN Health service to review the hosts.

Resolution

This is not an issue, the behavior is expected by default on vCenter.

The options on this scenario are:

Allow the vCenter to access those IPs on port 443

or

Ignore the blocking reports.