Troubleshoot expired vCenter Server (6.x, 7.0.x, 8.0.x) Certificates

Through the years I had to troubleshoot various instances where vCenter Servers had issues with services not starting properly due to expired Certificates.

In this article I have gathered a few support articles which help to resolve issues caused by expired vCenter Server Certificates like:

• Warnings in the vCenter interface showing certificates are expiring soon
• 503 service not available…endpoint
• no healthy upstream
• [500] An error occurred while fetching identity providers

The articles are for the following versions:

• vCenter Server 6.x
• vCenter Server 7.0.x
• vCenter Server 8.0.x

1. First determine which Certificates have expired
   • Determining expired SSL certificates in vCenter Server and ESXi 6.x and 7.0.x
2. Depending the expired certificate(s) found on Step 1 follow the resolution suggested in the following article:
   • Verify and resolve expired vCenter Server certificates using command line interface
3. STS Certificate renewal
   • Checking Expiration of STS Certificate on vCenter Server
   • Signing certificate is not valid” error in VCSA 6.5.x/6.7.x and vCenter Server 7.0.x
4. Custom Certificates
   • Replacing a vSphere 6.x /7.x Machine SSL certificate with a Custom Certificate Authority Signed Certificate
5. VMware Certificate Manager
   • How to use vSphere Certificate Manager to Replace SSL Certificates
6. Microsoft Certificate Authority
   • Creating a Microsoft Certificate Authority Template for SSL certificate creation in vSphere 6.x/7.x
   • Obtaining vSphere certificates from a Microsoft Certificate Authority
7. File transfer using WinSCP
   • Connecting to vCenter Server Virtual Appliance using WinSCP
   • Using WinSCP with the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (Alternative without messing with vCenter)

For Certificate alarms that have to do with the “BACKUP_STORES“:
Certificate alarm – Clearing BACKUP_STORES certificates in the VCSA

As always, before attempting any solutions make sure you have a Backup or a recent Snapshot of your vCenter Server VM.

If you’ve found my post helpful, I’d love it if you bought me a coffee! ☕😊