"Activate Networks & Flow Collection" option is greyed out for VCF Adapter in VCF Operations

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"Activate Networks & Flow Collection" option is greyed out for VCF Adapter in VCF Operations

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Article ID: 451187

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Updated On:

Products

VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

"Activate Networks & Flow Collection" option under Network Operations is greyed out for all VCF Adapter instances in VCF Operations 9.1 (Operate > Administration > Integrations > Accounts > VMware Cloud Foundation)
VCF Operations for Networks 9.1 has been successfully deployed or upgraded from an older version.
After adding/deploying Network Operations, a Networks Adapter instance might not be created automatically in VCF Operations under Operate > Administration > Integrations > Accounts.
The Operate > Flows page in VCF Operations only provides instructions for deploying VCF Operations for Networks
The Build > Lifecycle > VCF Management > Components page shows that VCF Operations for networks is deployed at version 9.1 and its status is Running.
In the VCF Operations for Networks UI, on the Settings > Infrastructure and Support page, System Health is good and all nodes appear healthy.
If VCF Operations for Networks 9.1 was upgraded from an earlier version, the Settings > Accounts and Data Sources page in VCF Operations for Networks UI shows that data is being received for previously configured data sources.

Environment

VCF Operations 9.1
VCF Operations for Networks 9.1

Cause

The Networks Adapter was not created automatically during deployment, resulting in VCF Operations lacking awareness of the appliance. This typically occurs if :

The adapter instance was previously created manually as a workaround, which prevents the proper automatic integration from establishing. This may also occur if the adapter instance is created but manually modified.
The VCF Operations outbound HTTPS call to VCF Ops Networks (and to VCF Automation) was blocked by a 407-authenticating corporate/global proxy configured in VCF Operations, so the AON capability/service-registry push never succeeded, Hence the Networks MP was never auto-created.

Resolution

Before applying the remediation steps below, ensure that any manually created/modified Operations for Networks adapter instances are deleted from the VCF Operations UI and there is no proxy server configured in VCF Operations Operate -> Administration -> Global settings -> Network settings page .

Part 1: Remove Stale Operations for Networks Component from Operations

Execute the following commands from the SDDC Manager SSH session (as user vcf and elevate to root) to remove the outdated component reference prior to triggering an inventory synchronization.

Prepare the VCF Operations environment variables and generate a VCF Operations authentication token:

OPS_FQDN="<VCF Operations FQDN>"
OPS_USER="admin"
OPS_PASS='<VCF Operations admin user password>'

OPS_TOKEN_PAYLOAD=$(jq -n --arg u "$OPS_USER" --arg p "$OPS_PASS" '{username: $u, password: $p}')

OPS_TOKEN=$(curl -k -s -X POST https://${OPS_FQDN}/suite-api/api/auth/token/acquire \
--header 'accept: application/json' \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--data "$OPS_TOKEN_PAYLOAD" | jq -r '.token')

echo "OPS Token: $OPS_TOKEN"

Define a variable that corresponds to the VCF Operations for Networks componenetUuid value:

OPS_NI_UUID=$(curl -k -s -X GET https://${OPS_FQDN}/suite-api/internal/components \
--header 'accept: application/json' \
--header "authorization: vRealizeOpsToken ${OPS_TOKEN}" \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--header 'x-vrealizeops-api-use-unsupported: true' | jq -r '.components[] | select(.componentType == "NI") | .componentUuid')

echo "Ops for Networks UUID: $OPS_NI_UUID"

Delete the component using the UUID obtained from the previous step:

curl -k -s -X DELETE https://${OPS_FQDN}/suite-api/internal/components/${OPS_NI_UUID} \
--header 'accept: application/json' \
--header "authorization: vRealizeOpsToken ${OPS_TOKEN}" \
--header 'content-type: application/json' \
--header 'x-vrealizeops-api-use-unsupported: true' | jq

Verify in the Operations UI under Administration > Control Panel > Management Tasks that the Delete Component task has completed successfully before proceeding.

Part 2: Trigger Inventory Synchronization from Fleet Lifecycle

Manually trigger an inventory sync to allow Fleet Lifecycle to properly rediscover and integrate the VCF Operations for Networks adapter instance.

Prepare the required environment variables and generate a VCF Fleet Lifecycle JWT access token
```
VSP_MGMT_FQDN="<VCF Services Runtime FQDN>"
VSP_USER="[email protected]"
VSP_PASS='<VCF Services Runtime vmware-system-user password>'
FLEET_LCM_FQDN="<VCF Fleet Lifecycle FQDN>"

JWT=$(curl -k -s -X POST \
  "https://${VSP_MGMT_FQDN}/api/v1/identity/token" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
  --data-urlencode "grant_type=password" \
  --data-urlencode "username=${VSP_USER}" \
  --data-urlencode "password=${VSP_PASS}" \
  | jq -r '.access_token')

echo "JWT: $JWT"
```
A string of about 500 characters will be displayed.

Note:
- Replace <VCF Services Runtime FQDN> with the fully qualified domain name of the VCF services runtime component (available on the Build > Lifecycle > VCF Management > Components page)
- Replace <VCF Services Runtime vmware-system-user password> with the password for the vmware-system-user account on the VCF services runtime component
- Replace <VCF Fleet Lifecycle FQDN> with the fully qualified domain name of the Fleet lifecycle component (available on the Build > Lifecycle > VCF Management > Components page)

Define a variable corresponding to the VCF Operations (OPS) component ID value:

OPS_ID=$(curl -sS -k -X GET "https://${FLEET_LCM_FQDN}/fleet-lcm/v1/components" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${JWT}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" | jq -r '.components[] | select(.componentType == "OPS_NETWORKS") | .id')

echo "OPS ID: $OPS_ID"

Trigger the inventory refresh action for the Operations component:

curl -sS -k -X POST "https://${FLEET_LCM_FQDN}/fleet-lcm/v1/components/<OPS-ID>?action=refresh" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${JWT}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" | jq

Note: Output similar to the following will be returned:

{
  "id": "019fb3a8-####-####-####-1d9f412698d8",
  "name": "REFRESH_COMPONENT_WORKFLOW",
  "description": {
    "id": "com.broadcom.vcf.lcm.build.fbs.workflow.RefreshComponentWorkflow",
    "defaultMessage": "Refresh component VCF Operations for networks <VCF Operations for Networks primary platform IP>",
    "localizedMessage": "Refresh component VCF Operations for networks <VCF Operations for Networks primary platform IP>",
    "args": {
      "componentType": "VCF Operations for networks",
      "componentFqdn": "<VCF Operations for Networks primary platform IP>"
    }
  },
  "status": "RUNNING",
  "createdBy": "[email protected]",
  "createTime": "2026-07-30T15:33:13.178Z",
  "startTime": "2026-07-30T15:33:13.178Z",
  "updateTime": "2026-07-30T15:33:13.265Z",
  "retriable": false,
  "cancellable": false,
  "additionalDetails": {
    "descriptionArgs": {
      "componentFqdn": "<VCF Operations for Networks primary platform IP>",
      "componentType": "VCF Operations for networks"
    }
  }
}

Monitor the task progress in Fleet LCM by navigating to Build > Lifecycle > Tasks. Wait for the synchronization tasks to finish completely.

Note: If this task fails with an error message similar to Error occurred while fetching Auth Token from VCF Ops Networks. This could be either due to no proper response or no connection established to VMware Aria Operations for Networks,and a proxy is configured, use the steps in Error code LCMVRNICONFIG90044 while deploying or upgrading VCF Operations for Networks.

Once synchronization completes, allow two collection cycles (10 minutes) to pass in VCF Operations, then verify that the "Activate Networks & Flow Collection" checkbox is successfully enabled and the Operate > Flows page provides the ability to filter/display network flows.

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