Stop logging me out vCOPS! WHY DO YOU HATE ME?! – Modifying vCOPS Timeout!

by Christopher Kusek (PKGuild) vCenter Operations Manager, vCOPS, Virtualization, vmware

I’m sure you’ve been in that situation… sitting there, using vCOPS day in and day out, only to get annoyed as all get out every time you go to refresh or do something and it’s all like HEY WHY DON’T YOU AUTHENTICATE AGAIN!    Well, look no further than here (and this respective KB Article) to cut it out!

Changing or disabling the UI session timeout for vCenter Operations Manager vApp (2015135)

To change the session timeout period for Standard and Advanced versions, set the <session-timeout> parameter to the required value in minutes for the desired timeout.

To disable the session timeout, set the <session-timeout> parameter to -1.
To change or disable the session timeout:

  1. Log in to the vCenter Operations Manager vApp UI VM.
  2. Open this file using a text editor:
    • For the Standard UI – /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/tomcat/webapps/vcops-vsphere/WEB-INF/web.xml
    • For the Enterprise Custom UI – /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/tomcat-enterprise/webapps/vcops-custom/WEB-INF/web.xml
  3. Locate the <session-config> parameter and change this to:
    <session-config>
    <session-timeout>value</session-timeout>
    </session-config>
    Where value is any value in minutes after which you want the session to timeout.
    For example:
      • To set the session to time out after 60 minutes, change this parameter to:
        <session-config>
        <session-timeout>60</session-timeout>
        </session-config>
      • To disable session timeout, change this parameter to:
        <session-config>
        <session-timeout>-1</session-timeout>
        </session-config>
  4. Restart the web services:

      • /etc/init.d/vcopswebenterprise restart

      • /etc/init.d/vcopsweb restart

You may notice that it might ALSO be set to default at 30, I’ve noticed that to occur as I’ve upgraded versions of VCOPS over time.

Also, important to note is, even if you’re running the Enterprise or Advanced versions, you’ll still want to modify the “Standard UI” configuration so that the initial vcops-vsphere is modified in addition to modifying the vcops-custom as listed above in the Enterprise Custom UI.

One last comment is, when you update your version of vCOPS you will NEED to go and change this setting each and every time.  So if you’re loading in the latest .PAK file to upgrade, reset you shall or else get annoyed again by timeouts!