This section covers activating a replacement Partner Gateway.

Overview

Gateway activation keys do not have the same default 30 day lifetime as Edges. In fact, a Gateway activation key has an infinite lifespan. If an on-premises Gateway fails and you wish to replace it with a newly built Gateway using the same name and IP address, you can use the same activation key that was used on the original Gateway.

As a result, for most Gateway issues, the quickest method of recovery is to spin up a new VM and register it to the Orchestrator using the failed Gateway’s activation key. This saves you a lot of time as the Orchestrator will push the existing configuration onto this new instance. Most Partners prefer this approach over configuring a new Gateway from scratch.

Prerequisites

Before you can use this Gateway replacement method, you must adjust the System Property gateway.activation.validate.deviceID and set the value to false. To do this you or another Operator with a Superuser role must go to Orchestrator > System Properties and search for gateway.activation and inspect gateway.activation.validate.deviceID. If the Value is already false as in the screenshot below, then you are ready for the next steps. If the Value is true, then a Gateway reactivation will not work, and you need to modify this System Property by clicking on it.

You must be an Operator with a Superuser role to make this change. By default, the Orchestrator performs a deviceID verification, and with this System Property set to true, activating a replacement Gateway would fail because the deviceID would not be the same as the original Gateway. Setting this property to false disables the verification process on the Orchestrator.
Note: There are no adverse effects to changing this value. You may leave it as false since the Gateway authentication keys are indefinitely valid.
Important: If you are on a Hosted Shared Orchestrator and do not know whether the gateway.activation.validate.deviceID System Property is set to False and find that you cannot reactivate your Partner Gateway, you can reach out to VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN Support and they will assist you in changing that System Property on your Orchestrator.

Replacement Partner Gateway Workflow

These are the steps to activate a replacement Partner Gateway:
  1. Locate the original activation key. This key is found by going to Gateway Management > Gateways and clicking on the name of the Gateway you are replacing. Click the down arrow beside the name and note the activation key.

  2. Use the activation key to activate the replacement Gateway on your newly spun up VM: /opt/vc/bin/activate.py -s vco_name_or_ip activation_key.