VMware vCenter Integration FAQ and Troubleshooting

This document provides answers to commonly asked questions about the NetBox VMware vCenter integration.

General Questions

Q: Does the integration support multiple vCenter instances?
A: Yes, to ingest data from multiple vCenters, you can run multiple instances of the integration with separate configurations.

Q: Can NetBox push configurations to vCenter?
A: No. The integration is currently data-in only, synchronising from vCenter into NetBox.

Q: Is the integration free to use?
A: The vCenter integration is available with commercial editions of NetBox.

Q: Do I have to buy NetBox Assurance to use the NetBox vCenter integration?
A: Yes. The NetBox vCenter integration extracts and transforms the latest state from VMware vCenter which is sent to NetBox Assurance where users can control how it is ingested into NetBox.

Q: Which versions of NetBox are supported?
A: 4.1 and above.

Q: Which versions of vCenter are supported?
A: The integration targets compatibility with the latest VMware vCenter APIs.

Technical Questions

Q: What authentication methods does the integration support?
A: The integration supports username/password authentication to vCenter. API tokens are obtained automatically during the authentication process.

Q: How does the integration handle SSL certificates?
A: The integration supports both SSL certificate validation and bypass modes. Use the SKIP_SSL configuration option to bypass SSL validation for development/testing environments.

Q: What happens if a vCenter host is unreachable?
A: The integration will log warnings for unreachable hosts and continue processing other hosts. Unreachable hosts will not be ingested into NetBox.

Q: How are site assignments determined for hosts?
A: Sites are determined by netbox_site:siteName tags on vCenter hosts. Hosts without these tags are assigned to a "DefaultSite".

Q: What happens to VMs when their host is offline?
A: VMs are processed regardless of host status, but their power state is mapped to NetBox status (powered off VMs become "offline" status).

Q: How does the integration handle duplicate IP addresses?
A: The integration handles duplicate IP addresses by reusing existing NetBox entities when possible.

Q: What custom fields are required in NetBox?
A: The integration requires these custom fields:

• vm_uuid (Virtual Machine, Text)
• datastore_name (Virtual Disk, Text)
• vmdk_file_path (Virtual Disk, Text)
• parent_site_groups (Site, Multiple objects)

Troubleshooting

Connection Issues

Problem: Connection to vCenter fails with SSL errors
Solution:

• Verify SSL certificates are valid on the vCenter server
• Use SKIP_SSL=true in configuration for testing (not recommended for production)
• Check firewall rules allow HTTPS traffic to vCenter
• Verify vCenter hostname resolves correctly

Problem: Authentication fails with "Invalid credentials"
Solution:

• Verify username and password are correct
• Check if account has required vCenter permissions
• Ensure account is not locked or expired
• Verify vCenter authentication service is running

Common Error Messages

"❌ VCENTER_HOST must be provided in policy config"

• Add VCENTER_HOST to your policy configuration
• Verify hostname is correct and resolvable

"❌ VCENTER_USER and VCENTER_PWD must be provided in policy config"

• Add VCENTER_USER and VCENTER_PWD to your policy configuration
• Verify credentials are correct