Intermittent LDAP Authentication Failures for Multiple Users in VMware Cloud Director

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• Users attempting to authenticate into VMware Cloud Director (VCD) via LDAP receive an error similar to the following:
  
  Authentication Error
  
  
• The errors are intermittent.
• In the VCD container logs (/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/vcloud-container-debug.log), errors similar to the following occur periodically:
  
  2026-07-23 22:01:48,578 | DEBUG    | pool-jetty-9773468        | SecurityServiceImpl            | Cannot authenticate user | requestId=########-####-####-####-############,request=POST https://example.com/cloudapi/1.0.0/sessions/provider,requestTime=############,remoteAddress=##.##.##.##:#####,userAgent=python-requests/2.32.0,accept=application/json;version 39.0
com.vmware.ssdc.backendbase.ldap.UninitializedLdapContextException: LDAP context not initialized.  Error connecting to LDAP.
...
2026-07-23 22:01:48,593 | ERROR    | pool-jetty-9772797        | LdapProviderImpl               | Error logging into LDAP. | requestId=########-####-####-####-############,request=POST https://example.com/cloudapi/1.0.0/sessions/provider,requestTime=1784844108558,remoteAddress=##.##.##.##:#####,userAgent=python-requests/2.32.0,accept=application/json;version 39.0
javax.naming.CommunicationException: simple bind failed: ##.##.##.###:636 [Root exception is javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target]
...


• The LDAP FQDN resolves to multiple addresses that do not return the same certificate.

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.6.x

Cause

There is not a consistent certificate on all LDAP servers. By default, VMware Cloud Director (VCD) will trust the initial certificate presented when LDAP is configured. If there are additional certificates in use, VCD will be unable to establish a connection to those servers without an explicit chain of trust.

Resolution

To remediate this issue, install a consistent certificate across the LDAP servers used by VMware Cloud Director.

If the same certificate cannot be used on all servers, import the additional certificates into the Trusted Certificates using the instructions from the following document:

Import Trusted Certificates Using Your VMware Cloud Director Service Provider Admin Portal