Supervisor Cluster Registration to Tanzu Mission Control Self-Managed Fails with Empty Namespace

Products

• VMware Tanzu Mission Control - SM

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to register a Supervisor cluster to Tanzu Mission Control Self-Managed (TMC-SM), the workflow fails to complete. The Supervisor cluster displays an unmanaged or disconnected status in the console.

The following symptoms are observed:

• The TMC-SM user interface displays the error message: Could not verify the connection to your management cluster.

• Running commands to inspect the registration namespace reveals that zero pods, services, or configuration objects exist.

• The local agentinstall Custom Resource (CR) exists on the Supervisor but contains no active events, progress logs, or reconciliation history.

• Explicit deletion of all resources via kubectl delete all --all -n <NAMESPACE> leaves the namespace entirely blank, and core registration controllers fail to automatically re-populate the runtime objects.

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) / vSphere with Tanzu Compute Domain

• Tanzu Mission Control Self-Managed (TMC-SM) 1.4.3

Cause

The registration failure is caused by an incomplete or corrupt deployment of the local TMC agent infrastructure within the Supervisor cluster. This occurs when a previous registration attempt terminates abnormally, leaving stale cluster metadata records on the TMC-SM console side while completely removing the installer objects locally. Without a functional installer daemon configuration loop on the Supervisor, the cluster cannot interpret the registration URL or compile downstream Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs).

Resolution

To re-initialize the workspace topology and force agent object creation, perform the manual manifest application detailed below:

1. Log into the Tanzu Mission Control Self-Managed (TMC-SM) management interface. Locate the stale Supervisor cluster entry from the previous failed sequence and choose Delete to completely purge its tracking reference from the control plane.

2. Establish an SSH session to the active vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) as root.

3. Login to the Supervisor Cluster.

   /usr/lib/vmware-wcp/decryptK8Pwd.py

4. Manually re-apply the native Tanzu agent installer bundle template by executing the following command:

   kubectl apply -f /usr/lib/vmware-wcp/objects/PodVM-GuestCluster/70-tmc-agent-installer/tmc-agent-installer.yaml
   

5. Verify that core installer pods and configmaps have successfully initialized within the namespace:

   kubectl get all -n <Namespace>
   

6. Obtain a fresh registration URL from the TMC-SM cluster creation wizard and re-initiate the registration workflow from the vCenter Server User Interface.

Additional Information

• Remove the Cluster Agent
• Register a Management Cluster with Tanzu Mission Control