CertificateValidationException

After deploying a new vSphere 6 vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and configuring the Platform Services Controller (PSC) to act as a subordinate Certificate Authority (CS), I was unable to register the NSX Manager to the Lookup Service. Try saying that fast after a pint or two!? Attempting to register NSX to the Lookup Service would result in the following error: NSX Management Service operation failed.( Initialization of Admin Registration Service Provider failed.

Today I found out that in vSphere 5.1 the SSO administrator account (admin@system-domain) has a password that expires after 365 days. See KB2035864: vCenter Single Sign-On account (SSO) passwords expire after 365 days, including the password for admin@system-domain. Awesome. In vSphere 5.5 it gets even better – the password expires every 90 days by default! (See the vSphere 5.5 SSO documentation) By default, vCenter Single Sign-On passwords, including the password for administrator@vsphere.