Unable to create a vmware session ID - vmware

Question

I have a VCenter Server version 5.5. I am trying to generate a session ID to authenticate to ReST API requests using the following command:
curl -kv -X POST -H 'Accept: application/json' --basic -u me#abc.co.in:myPass! $VCENTER/rest/com/vmware/cis/session
where $VCENTER=https://vc
Here is the output I get
* Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
* Trying 1.2.3.4...
* Connected to vc (1.2.3.4) port 443 (#0)
* successfully set certificate verify locations:
* CAfile: none
CApath: /etc/ssl/certs
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, CERT (11):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Server finished (14):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Client key exchange (16):
* SSLv3, TLS change cipher, Client hello (1):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSLv3, TLS change cipher, Client hello (1):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSL connection using AES256-SHA
* Server certificate:
* subject: O=VMware, Inc.; OU=vCenterServer_2014.12.24_203443; CN=VMware default certificate; emailAddress=support#vmware.com
* start date: 2014-12-24 04:44:30 GMT
* expire date: 2024-12-22 04:44:32 GMT
* issuer: O=VMware, Inc.; OU=vCenterServer_2014.12.24_203443; CN=VC.xyz.co.in; emailAddress=support#vmware.com
* SSL certificate verify result: unable to get local issuer certificate (20), continuing anyway.
* Server auth using Basic with user 'me#xyz.co.in'
> POST /rest/com/vmware/cis/session HTTP/1.1
> Authorization: Basic YWthbmtzaGFfamFpbkBwZXJzaXN0ZW50LmNvLmluOmFra2FTZXAyMDE3IQ==
> User-Agent: curl/7.35.0
> Host: pt-vc
> Accept: application/json
>
< HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
< Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 09:33:40 GMT
< Connection: close
< Content-Type: text; charset=plain
< Content-Length: 0
<
* Closing connection 0
* SSLv3, TLS alert, Client hello (1):
Looking at the output I am not sure what's going wrong and where. Is this because my password has an ! which needs to be converted into its hexadecimal equivalent?

Answer 1

The exclamation point should be fine to pass as a password.
The issue could be due to vCenter 5.5 not having any RESTful endpoints available. That was introduced in vSphere/vCenter 6.0.
Your output would look closer to the following if you were on a 6.0 or 6.5 environment:
curl -kv -X POST -H 'Accept: application/json' --basic -u user#domain.lab:VMware1! https://vcsa01.domain.lab/rest/com/vmware/cis/session
* Trying 10.159.13.52...
* Connected to vcsa01.domain.lab (10.159.13.52) port 443 (#0)
* TLS 1.2 connection using TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
* Server certificate: VCSA01
* Server auth using Basic with user 'user#domain.lab'
> POST /rest/com/vmware/cis/session HTTP/1.1
> Host: vcsa01.domain.lab
> Authorization: Basic ZWNrQGNwYnUubGFiOlZNd2FyZTEh
> User-Agent: curl/7.43.0
> Accept: application/json
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2017 18:47:18 GMT
< Set-Cookie: vmware-api-session-id=37e6921e6a3905b47ba356aaad19d3d6;Path=/rest;Secure;HttpOnly
< Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT
< Content-Type: application/json
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
<
* Connection #0 to host vcsa01.domain.lab left intact
{"value":"37e6921e6a3905b47ba356aaad19d3d6"}