vRO Plugin not showing up on VCSA w/External PSC

[DDeane]

I'm new with vRO and cannot seem to get the vRO plugin registered in vCenter.  My config is vRO 7 (appliance) pointed towards an external PSC (appliance) that is tied to a vCenter server appliance (6.0U1).  When I look in the vCenter MOB in the plugins section, I do not see the plugin for vRO.  I can run the vRO flow for registering the vRO appliance w/vCenter, and for registering the plugin.  All seems to pass.

I can login to vRO via SSO.

I can run select the correct vCenter when drilling down with a work flow and select the correct object to run something against.

Looking for any pointers/ideas that anyone may have.  It kind of seems to work, though when I right click a vCenter server object (say a VM) and try to run a vRO flow against it in the webclient, I get moved to the vRealize Orchestrator section but the middle screen just stays grey and nothing happens.

Thanks in advance.

[iiliev]

In vRealize Orchestrator section within vSphere Web client, do you have a single 'Getting Started' tab, or also several other tabs? On the left panel, do you have entries like Inventory Lists -> Workflows?

If you see only 'Getting started' tab, this means the vRO integration plug-in is not downloaded properly from vRO server. How did you register vCenter Server instance in vRO - by vCenter IP, or by vCenter FQDN (it should be by FQDN)?

Also, check vSphere Web client log file for possible errors/exceptions related to download and deploy of vRO plug-in (I think its file name is vco-plugin.zip)

Also, check the vco extension in the MOB. Inside it, there should be a URL pointing to vco-plugin.zip. Check if this file is accessible eg. by trying to download it manually using  a tool like wget/curl/browser/etc.

[DDeane]

Thanks for taking the time to get back to me.  I kind of get a tab ....I do not have anything on the left either ( I had turned off the getting started tabs, and turning those back on shows the getting started tab, but that is it.).  I tried registering by IP, and FQDN using the vRO flow.   I will double check the logs and see if anything pops up.

The vco extension is not showing up in the MOB....I am guessing that is the root of all of this, and I just need to figure out why.  Here are all of the current extension loaded and visible in the MOB.

Interestingly enough.  When I look in administration -> client plugins, I see the vRO plugin but it shows as version 1....not sure if that is correct, but it does not seem correct to me.

[rszymczak]

Strange that it doesn't show up in the MOB but in the client plugins sections.

One thing that comes to my mind when seeing that issue: have you tried logging into vSphere web client using the administrator@vsphere.local account?

If vRO permissions are not set correctly the plugin will not load in the web client. By default when using SSO integrated reg. the administrator@vsphere.local should be in the vRO admins group.

But that's really just one thing you can try - I don't belive that's the issue since the MOB is empty, which it should not be.

[DDeane]

Thanks for the reply.  Yep, I have tried logging in with administrator@vsphere.local and I get the same issue.

[iiliev]

vRO plug-in version 1 is a 'placeholder', cut-down variant, with only a single home page. The 'real' vRO plug-in is hosted on vRO server and is downloaded at runtime by vSphere Web client using the URL available in the vCenter extension.

Your MOB shows that you don't have com.vmware.vco extension, so vSphere Web client cannot automatically download the 'real' vRO plug-in.

So the first thing to do is to make sure that the extension is registered and visible in the MOB. To do so, run the workflow 'Add a vCenter Server instance' and register your vCenter using its FQDN. Then, run the workflow 'Register vCenter Orchestrator as a vCenter Server extension. After that, verify that the extension is created, and check if the vSphere Web client will download the vRO plug-in (you need to logout/login to Web client, or perhaps even restart Web client service).

[DDeane]

Thank you for the note.  I have run the 'Add a vCenter Server instance' workflow followed by the 'Register vCenter Orchestrator as a vCenter Server extension' workflow

and even rebooted the VCSA and still see the same list of extensions in the MOB

.

When I select a VM in vCenter, I can select vRO workflows,

when I select a workflow it flips over this which stays blank.

[iiliev · Accepted solution]

In the MOB, there is no entry extensionList["com.vmware.vco"] which could mean that workflow 'Register vCenter Orchestrator as a vCenter Server extension' has failed to create the extension for some reason.

Could you check vRO server log file (located at /var/log/vco/app-server/server.log) for errors/exceptions? It's possible that the error is catched in the Java code and not propagated to the UI.

Also, which user did you use to invoke the workflow? Does this user have enough permissions on vCenter side? Registering/modifying/deleting extensions require certain level of permissions.

[DDeane]

Thanks for the note.  I am happy to report that the problem is solved.  You idea for looking at the logs got me to the finish line.  In the end my problem was the field in the plugin registration workflow titled "external address this orchestrator is advertised".  I have been just putting in the FQDN of the server where it should really be https://<FQDN>:8281.  Being new to vRO I read but did not fully grasp the part in the documentation on page 65 where it says "Enter the service URL of the Orchestrator server".  Everything is looking good now.

Thanks again.

Dan