STOP THE PRESSES! The solution to your vCenter 5.1 woes may be at your finger tips. If anyone has tried to install and configure VMware vSphere 5.1, you may have run into a plethora of difficulties. My 14 part vCenter 5.1 installation series, found here, have gotten massive page views and reader feedback. The process to use trusted SSL certificates is NOT easy, and was poorly documented. VMware is working on several KB articles to help clarify the process. Contained in the updated vCenter 5.1.0A release are some fixes to the installation process, a couple of which address SSL issues. You can find the full release notes here.
Fixed problems include:
vCenter Server Services fail on startup after upgrade to vCenter Server 5.1
After you upgrade to vCenter Server 5.1, the vCenter Server services fail to start up and generate vpxd dumps. This issue occurs if old certificates are removed during upgrade of vCenter Server or if you attempt to perform a fresh install of vCenter Server with an already upgraded vCenter Server 5.1 database.
Users unable to log in to vCenter Server after upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1
After upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1, you might be unable to log in with the user or group administrator privileges provided by the vCenter Server installer during the upgrade process. This issue can occur if vCenter Server finds a vCenter Server Administrator user or group that can be authenticated against vCenter Single Sign On while searching the vCenter Server database.
Invalid solution certificate. Certificate already expired. error message occurs when upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 and registering the vCenter Server instance to vCenter Single Sign On The vCenter Server installer does not allow upgrade if the certificate is invalid or already expired.
vCenter Server takes an unusually long time to start and the vSphere Client might time out
When a large number of permissions are assigned to objects in the vCenter Server inventory, the vCenter Server service does not start as quickly as expected as vCenter Server verifies that the users and groups exist in the identity source. Also, the connection to the vSphere Client might time out when you log in with Windows session credentials.
Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 might fail with error 29107 even though the service or solution user is already registered
Attempts to upgrade vCenter Server 5.1 might fail with the following error message:
Error 29107. The service or solution user is already registered. Check VM_ssoreg.log in system, temporary folder for details.
Installing or upgrading vCenter Server 5.1 fails with the error: Could not contact Lookup Service
vCenter Simple Install might fail with the following error if the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) contains the string port during the installation:
Error 29102 . Could not contact Lookup Service. Please check VM_ssoreg.log in system temporary folder for details.
Installing vCenter Single Sign On fails with the error: Unable to create database users: Password validation failed
When you attempt to install vCenter Single Sign On using an existing database or the bundled SQL Express database, the installation fails with the following error:
Error 29114. Cannot connect to DB
vCenter Server and vSphere Client
Unable to log in to the vSphere Web Client due to incorrect proxy settings
Slow network speeds caused by incorrect proxy settings might result in delay during the interaction between the vSphere Web Client, domain controller, and external vCenter Single Sign On. You might encounter the following issues due to this delay:
Attempts to log into the vSphere Web Client fail with the following error: The vSphere Web Client cannot connect to the vCenter Single Sign On server.
A delay in excess of 20 minutes to list all domain users
A delay in excess of 20 minutes to load the whole vCenter Server inventory after domain use login
vMotion and Storage vMotion
Unable to access the cross-host Storage vMotion feature from the vSphere Web Client with an Essentials Plus license
If you start the migration wizard for a powered on virtual machine with an Essentials Plus license, the Change both host and datastore option in the migration wizard is disabled, and the following error message is displayed:
Storage vMotion is not licensed on this host.
To perform this migration without a license, power off the virtual machine.
