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Quick Tip - Connect-OMServer throws The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.

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While doing some work with PowerCLI and vRealize Operations Manager (vROps), I ran into the following error message when trying to connect to my vROps instance using PowerCLI:

Connect-OMServer : 2/17/2017 5:27:50 AM Connect-OMServer The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.
At line:1 char:1
+ Connect-OMServer -Server vrops.primp-industries.com -User admin -Password VMware ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (VMware.VimAutom...tionServiceImpl:OMConnectionServiceImpl) [Connect-OMServer], OMException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : OM_ConnectivityServiceImpl_ConnectOMServer_ByUserNameAndPassword_ConnectError,VMware.VimAutomation.vROps.Commands.Cmdlets.ConnectOMServer

Although there were some hits on Google, none of the suggestions has worked. I had also found that this issue was only happening in one of my lab environments which was running Windows 2008 R2, for my other system which had Windows 8.1, the issue was not observed.

I had reached out to the PowerCLI Engineering team and it looks like the issue is due to a change in the hashing algorithm (SHA512) that vROps uses for its SSL Certificates. When using TLS 1.2, SHA512 is not supported by default. The fix is to simply install the following patch here which will resolve the problem.

Extracting VIN (vSphere Infrastructure Navigator) information using PowerCLI & vROps REST API

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A request that I continue to receive from customers on a fairly regular basis is a way to extract the virtual machine application services and dependencies that is provided by vSphere Infrastructure Navigator (VIN) solution. Below is an example of what a VIN discovery might look like and in this case, it is actually mapping out the application and dependencies of itself.


Today, there is not a public API for VIN and although I have published several methods here, here and here on how to extract the information from VIN, the experience is still not very user friendly or easy to do.

Last week, while talking to a fellow colleague who works in our VMware Validated Design team, I found out that VIN actually has a vRealize Operations Manager (vROps) Management Pack and could potentially be useful in helping us retrieve the information generated by VIN.


Not having spent much time with vROps Management Packs, I understood at a high level they provided custom dashboards for vROps, but I was not sure if the data provided by the management packs could also be retrieved programmatically? It has also been some time since I have looked at the vROps REST API and specifically the "public" REST API which allows customers to retrieve the metrics collected from within vROps.

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Exploring new VCSA VAMI API w/PowerCLI: Part 8

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In Part 8, we are going to take a look how services are managed in a VCSA or PSC node which is provided by the vCenter Server Lifecycle Management system also referred to internally as vMon. You can interact with the vMon service using either the service-control utility which is only available via SSH or the VAMI APIs which are available remotely. As you probably have guessed, we will be using the VAMI APIs 🙂

VAMI UI Area of Focus

There is not a service view in the VAMI UI (https://[VCSA]:5480) for either the VCSA or PSC. However, this information is available as part of the VAMI information when logged into the vSphere Web Client by navigating to System Configuration->Nodes->Related Objects or System Configuration->Services.

VAMI APIs Used

  • GET /appliance/vmon/service
  • POST /appliance/vmon/service/start
  • POST /appliance/vmon/service/stop

PowerCLI Function

Sample Output

The Get-VAMIService will lists all available services for the given VCSA or PSC node that you are connected to. It provides the exact same output that you would see in the vSphere Web Client such as the name of the service, the current state, the health and whether the service is disabled or configured to start up automatically or manually.


The function also accepts a name parameter if you know the specific service you wish to query, for example here is the syntax for checking the Auto Deploy service which is named rbd:

Get-VAMIService -Name rbd

We can use the Start-VAMISerivce function and given a service name, we can start it as shown in the screenshot below.


Similialy, we can use the Stop-VAMISerivce function and given a service name to stop the service as shown in the screenshot below.