Hello,
I inherited a multi-site installation of 5.1u1b that wasn't done in accordance with the recommendations outlined in KB 2042849 (VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x Multisite Single Sign-On deployment best practices). Nobody has ever used the Web Client, & while the sites & everything work fine in the C# client, I get a lot of exceptions with the Web Client whether logging in as a user with admin rights or as admin@system-domain (I can't even log in as this at one site since the password had expired & been changed, and I don't know it).
Since on the two sites where I can log in as admin@system-domain, I see only the standard SSO application users (vCenter, Web Client, vCO, vCenter, & VSM for vShield Manager), I'm thinking it's best to do a fresh SSO install vs. trying to fix things & then upgrading. The SSO databases weren't ever synced -- it was all done independently & then linked-mode was enabled. I have done a 5.1->5.5 upgrade successfully with a fresh install, and I don't recall having any issues other than having to re-register vShield Manager. That was an in-place upgrade & everything was on the same server, but it was in late 2013 so I'm hoping I didn't forget anything. I was careful and took backups of SSL certs, the VMwareVCMSDS instance, vCenter DB & other stuff. I retained all permissions, historical data, etc.
This is a bit different in each of the three sites has SSO & the Inventory Service on one host and vCenter/VMwareVCMSDS on another, so 6 total servers. I'm not interested in changing hosts since I want the Lookup Service URL & stuff to be the same. I also have vCOPs 5.8.2 (SiteA only) and SRM 5.1.1 (SiteA->SiteC, SiteB->SiteC) running in this environment. The plan is to upgrade SRM immediately afterwards.
Am I correct that a fresh install should be relatively seamless? My high-level plans:
1) multiple backups of everything
2) disable linked-mode between SiteA, SiteB, SiteC
3) uninstall SSO & the Inventory Service from SiteA's SSO server & do a fresh install on the same server as first site in a multi-site configuration
4) upgrade SiteA's vCenter -- should automatically re-register?
5) uninstall SSO & the Inventory Service from SiteB's SSO server & do a fresh install on the same server as additional site in a multi-site configuration
6) upgrade SiteB's vCenter
7) uninstall SSO & the Inventory Service from SiteC's SSO server & do a fresh install on the same server as additional site in a multi-site configuration
8) upgrade SiteC's vCenter
9) re-register each data center's (each vCenter has a number of them) vShield Manager with the Lookup Service/vCenter
10) fix any vCOPs issues
11) re-enable linked-mode
12) upgrade SRM
Thanks!