6.7

Table Of Contents
Revert Last Performed Operation by Republishing Old Certificates
When you perform a certificate management operation by using vSphere Certificate Manager, the current
certificate state is stored in the BACKUP_STORE store in VECS before certificates are replaced. You can
revert the last performed operation and return to the previous state.
Note The revert operation restores what is currently in the BACKUP_STORE. If you run vSphere
Certificate Manager with two different options and you then attempt to revert, only the last operation is
reverted.
Reset All Certificates
Use the Reset All Certificates option if you want to replace all existing vCenter certificates with
certificates that are signed by VMCA.
When you use this option, you overwrite all custom certificates that are currently in VECS.
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On a Platform Services Controller node, vSphere Certificate Manager can regenerate the root
certificate and replace the machine SSL certificate and the machine solution user certificate.
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On a management node, vSphere Certificate Manager can replace the machine SSL certificate and
all solution user certificates.
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In an embedded deployment, vSphere Certificate Manager can replace all certificates.
Which certificates are replaced depends on which options you select.
Manual Certificate Replacement
For some special cases, for example, if you want to replace only one type of solution user certificate, you
cannot use the vSphere Certificate Manager utility. In that case, you can use the CLIs included with your
installation for certificate replacement.
Understanding Stopping and Starting of Services
For certain parts of manual certificate replacement, you must stop all services and then start only the
services that manage the certificate infrastructure. If you stop services only when needed, you can
minimize downtime.
You have to stop and start services as part of the certificate replacement process.
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If your environment uses an embedded Platform Services Controller, you start and stop all services,
as discussed in this document.
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If your environment uses an external Platform Services Controller, you do not have to stop and start
VMware Directory Service (vmdird) and VMware Certificate Authority (vmcad) on the vCenter Server
node. Those services run on the Platform Services Controller.
Platform Services Controller Administration
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