Removing an existing vRA License

Came across a situation where even though the product was licensed , it was stating that it's not found in the database.

Re-applying same license was not working and it was stating that it's invalid

While going through /var/log/vmware/vcac/catalina.log found that there jdbc connection errors while trying to access database entry where licensed assets were present. Also, /var/log/vmware/messages was clearly stating that the license is missing or not found

Follow below steps to delete an existing license in vRA

** Before Attempting these steps take a snapshot and a valid backup of vRA database ( vPostgres ) **

1. SSH or putty into the vRealize Automation appliance as root

2. Take a backup of vRealize Automation Database

3. Stop vRealize automation service

4. service vcac-server stop

5. Change directory using below command

6. cd /tmp

7. Run this command to create a copy of the database in /tmp

8. su -m -c "/opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/pg_dumpall -c -f /tmp/vcac.sql" postgres

9. Run this command to compress database

10. bzip2 -z /tmp/vcac.sql

11. Connect to vPostgres database

12. su -postgres psql vcac

13. Verify if embeddedlicenseentry table is present in database

14. \dt embeddedlicenseentry

1. Review how many rows are present inside the table

2. SELECT * FROM embeddedlicenseentry;

3. There should be 36 ~ 37 entries

4. Delete all information from embeddedlicenseentry table

5. delete FROM embeddedlicenseentry;

1. Verify if the table is now empty

2. SELECT * FROM embeddedlicenseentry;

3. Exit from Database

4. \q

5. Restart services on appliance

6. vcac­vami service­manage stop vco­server vcac­server horizon­workspace elasticsearch

7. vcac­vami service­manage start vco­server vcac­server horizon­workspace elasticsearch

Once the Services are back , if we go back to VAMI portal , under vRA Settings --> Licensing , you should not see your previous license present

Re-Apply your existing license it should be successful.

For distributed environments

2 vRA appliances scenario:-

Perform database on the Master node , you can get to know the MASTER from vRA Settings --> Database

Restart services on both the nodes

3 vRA appliance scenario:-

Change database to ASYNCHRONOUS mode

Once done , shutdown both the non-MASTER applainces

Since your left only with the MASTER node now , follow same steps as above

Once the key is accepted , bring the other nodes online

Once all services are registered , go ahead and change the database mode to SYNCHRONOUS

Ensure , there are proper backups before performing any of these steps.

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