vCenter Server vdcadmintool VmDirGetState failed with error 5

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When executing the CLI utility /usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/vdcadmintool to query the VMware Directory Service (vmdir) state, the command returns an error. Selecting option 6 from the utility menu results in the following failure:

GetVmDirState failed: VmDirGetState() failed. error(5)

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

The vdcadmintool utility requires elevated root-level permissions to successfully interact with internal directory service states, and executing this utility as an SSO user will result in this failure.

Resolution

Execute the vdcadmintool utility using the root account via SSH.

1. Establish an SSH connection to the vCenter Server Appliance using root credentials.
2. Run the following command:

/usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/vdcadmintool


3. Select the appropriate option from the menu to perform the required state query.