The VCRM, at X could not be accessed using the specified account and password

[Gabriel Aguilo]

Hi all,

I hope someone can help me, im at the end of my tether here.

After upgrading to HP SIM v4.2, three of my servers (out of 30 which are working OK) cannot connect into the VCRM.

I have everything setup correctly:

The servers are in the right domain, and can ping and resolve the VCRM server correctly.
They all have the correct SNMP community settings.
I have reinstalled both the VCA and Insight management agents. (rebooted after each change)
They are all set to trust via certificate. (tested working on other servers)

When I try to log onto the VCRM from the problem server, I get:

"The Version Control Repository Manager, at X, could not be accessed using the specified account and password."

In the VCA event logs I receive:
The repository specified, HOMANAGE, did not return a result.
Additional Data
Connection: close
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/plain
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:01:36 GMT
Server: CompaqHTTPServer/9.9 HP System Management Homepage/2.0.0.103
Set-Cookie:Compaq-HMMD=0001-3750c407-b01e-cd4b-bd63-2dcdeaf110c8-1107273696614713; path=/ Status: 500

And in the VCRM log I get:
Failed request.
Additional Data
Microsoft JScript runtime error
Object required
line = 170, col = 6 (line is offset from the start of the script block).
Error returned from property or method call.

Has anyone have any idea on what to do here? Ive trawled the forums all day and have found no anwsers. Ive tried so many things, and it still isnt working. (Replicating Agent settings, installing the VCA agents with a custom install, using the correct authentication). Im dreading raising a call with HP...

Thanks

Gabriel

[G L_1]

This might help. Not sure if it will.
When you connect to VCRM it is based on the Homepage settings on 2381 and not based on Windows authentication.

So you have 3 login options.

"administrator", "operator", or "user".

Note the small "a" in administrator, its not a capital A.

Its like accessing your system management homepage, it authenticates based on administrator, operator or user and not based on Windows authentication.

Try that and enter in the password again for that administrative account from teh CMS.

see if that works.

If you use your windows authentication, it will always fail and say that it won't be able to connect to the repository of whatever that message is that you receive above.

Hope this works

[Gabriel Aguilo]

Hi there, thanks for the response.

However, what you are telling me is correct for the older version of HP SIM. HP SIM v4.2 now uses Operating System Authentication, which means a local admin to the server where the VCRM is installed, is the account now used to configure all the VCA agents to connect into the VCRM.

I have tried my old server homepage admin account (used to connect into "2381"), and any other accounts. None of these seem to work.

If you have any more ideas please let me know

[Gabriel Aguilo]

Has anyone had this problem? HP still dont have an anwser and Ive tried everything

[Peter Stringer]

I have same problem and the documentation from HP is horrific. I have gone through it so monay time and I still have the same errors.

Canm anybody explain in basic terms how to set this up.

[Peter Stringer]

Interestingly I have changed logon account for windows service HP insight manager from local logon to a domain admin account and all my managed servers are able to see the repos which sits on SIM server?

weird?

But my servers which sit in our DMZ are still not able to see the repos?

regards

[Chris Hibbard]

Whether or not the repository uses the OS accounts or the old administrator/operator/user accounts actually depends on the version of the repository (VCRM). Since the new repository (VCRM 2.10 on 7.20 MGMT CD) uses OS Authentication, we've disallowed the use of the local "administrator" account to access VCRM in order to prevent an unfortunate side effect of any incorrectly configured Version Control Agents possibly repeatedly trying to access the OS administrator account with a bad password. This COULD lockout the administrator OS account, depending on ssecurity settings.
So, the VCA must now access the OS-Authenticating VCRM (Repository) using an account OTHER THAN "administrator". You can add another account name to the administrators group, or create a new group and add accounts into it, then grant access to System Management Homepage (SMH) for accounts in that group (preferred method).

There were a few engineering advisories that covered this, and there are sections in the SMH help which explain how to add OS groups into the SMH security settings.

Setting up new OS groups and new accounts will give you the added security benefit of using OS authentication, while using OS accounts that have no real authority on the OS (only access to SMH).

-Chris Hibbard

[Ananthak23]

Hi Gabriel,

When System Management Homepage is installed, the Version Control Agent cannot be configured to access a Version Control Repository Manager 2.1 or later using the administrator login credentials. A feature in the Version Control Agent prevents you from using administrator credentials to ensure that the administrator password for the Version Control Repository Manager is not locked out when the Version control Agent retries the login to the Version Control Repoistory Manager several times.

It is recommended that you create an account with administrator privileges to be used specifically by the Version Control Agent.

-Anantha

[Gabriel Aguilo]

Hi All, thanks for responding,

When I setup HP SIM 4.2, I read and understood all the documentation for SMH 2.0 and the new VCRM.

I have setup a local admin account on the VCRM server, i.e VCAdministrator, which 90% of my servers can connect into via their VC Agents.

The few that cannot connect, can all "see" the VCRM server, have the correct trusted certificates (on the SIM Server and the client server), are on the same domain and subnet, have the correct SNMP settings (Read/write with the correct loopback addresses 127.0.0.1, hp sim IP address).

The only problems I can see is in the error messages above.

I have raised a call with HP, but they still havent got back to me.

Any more suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Gabriel

[Chris Hibbard · Accepted solution]

If you could zip up all html files from: %systemdrive%\hp\hpsmh\data\cgi-bin\vcagent\cache\*.xml

and send them to me at hibbard@hp.com, I'll see if we can further debug the problem.

-Chris Hibbard

[Chris Hibbard]

This may be caused by VCA not being able to read the version of the ACU product. Re-installing ACU may help. I'm still looking into this, hopefully more info to come...
-Chris

[Gabriel Aguilo]

With Chris's help I was able to solve the problem, it turned out to be a problem with the VCRM.

An *.xsl document needed to be edited with specific information given to me by Chris.

All my servers can connect into the VCRM now.

[Gabriel Aguilo]

From Chris Hibbard:

Our VCRM developer advised trying this as a workaround. This problem will be corrected in an up-coming version control release, but hopefully this will get you going temporarily. Please let me know if this helps you out.
__________________________________________

On the VCRM system, in %systemdrive%\hp\hpsmh\data\cgi-bin\vcrepository\xsl\extendinv.xsl, this should be the differences:

OUT (remove from sheet):
< strVerOther = nsVerOther.item(0).nodeValue;
< strVerCurrent = nsVerCurrent.item(0).nodeValue;
---
IN (add to sheet):
> if (nsVerOther.length > 0)
> strVerOther = nsVerOther.item(0).nodeValue;
> else
> strVerOther = "";
>
> if (nsVerCurrent.length > 0)
> strVerCurrent = nsVerCurrent.item(0).nodeValue;
> else
> strVerCurrent = "";

If the problem is caused by the null version, this will correct the problem and allow changing the VCA settings. They should back-up the original extendinv.xsl file first.