vCenter Smartcard logon prompts to open a new session on the browser.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• vCenter server is configured for smart card authentication.
  
  
• After some time the user is logged out of the browser session.
  
  
• The user is prompted to open a new browser session to user vCenter smart card authentication.
  
  

Environment

vCenter Server

Cause

A new browser session is required to use certificate authentication to prevent security conflicts from a previous session using certificate authentication.

Resolution

• Restart the browser session.

or

• Clear browser cookies and ssl state.

or

• Increase the vSphere client Timeout value.
  
  How to Configure Your vSphere Client Timeout Value
  
  By default, the vSphere Client sessions close after 120 minutes of idle time, and require the user to log in again to resume using the client. You can change the timeout value by editing the webclient.properties file.
  
  To set the client to never timeout, specify a negative or 0 value for the timeout.

Additional Information

Users who log in to a vCenter Server system may be prompted to authenticate with a smart card and PIN combination.