Be carefull with VMware SSO Master password bug

This week I installed a fresh vSphere 5.1 Update 1 environment and I wanted to configure it will real world certificates to get rid of all those “Do you really really reeeeeally accept this insecure website” messages. Using the VMware SSL Certificate Automation Tool I generated all the new certificates and then started changing the certificate on the VMware SSO server. When doing this, you’ll be asked for the Master password. Since I learned a while ago in a very painful way that the Admin@System-domain password is not equal to the Master password, I had written down the Master password and was 100% sure I had the correct Master password. But updating the certificate failed with the error: Incorrect master password. Tried it a few times but it kept failing. Logged in with admin@system-domain in the vSphere Web Client and this was the correct password.

I switched to command line and tried to run some SSO Util commands to make sure my password worked and then everything became very clear. I have a bad character in the password. In the password I set during install, there is an “&” (ampersand) and in many console languages this has a special meaning. When running some rsautil commands using the master password VMware&77  I get messages like: “77″ is not recognised as a command.

In my homelab I installed a fresh new SSO just for this test. During installation I set the master password to: VMware@55. Then I tested my rsautil command: rsautil manage-secrets -m VMware@55 -a list. This worked, I got a list of … well things.

--> please see the rest on the blog, and for once, please do not be too "special characters" on your password for now, better use a passphrase... : http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/be-carefull-with-vmware-sso-master-password-bug/