NetWorker: After Enabling MFA, Login Fails with "Please Enter Valid OTP"

• Multi-Factor Authentication is enabled for a local NetWorker user account and was successfully registered in Google Authenticator.
• The Google Authenticator app is version 6.0 or newer.
• While logging in to the NetWorker Web User Interface (NWUI) with the MFA user, MFA authentication fails. An error message appears stating "Please Enter Valid OTP"

The server used to access NWUI and the NetWorker server or out of time sync. For example, both the NetWorker server and host accessing NWUI are in the same time zone; however, the time on one of these systems is off.

This issue was observed in a scenario where the NetWorker server was set for a specific time zone; however, the time on the server was incorrect. It was off by one hour. Time differences of a few seconds may not pose any issue; however, greater discrepancies in time can produce this issue.

Ensure that the Google Authenticator app is 6.0 or newer.

Fix the time zone/sync issues on the host that is out of sync. 

Consult with the system administrator for changing time, time zone, Network Time Protocol (NTP) settings. These steps can vary depending on the operating system.

If the host out of sync is the NetWorker/NWUI server, restart NetWorker services:

Linux:

nsr_shutdown
net start networker
systemctl restart nwui

Windows:

net stop nsrd
net start nsrd
net stop nwui
net start nwui

Once the time sync issue is corrected, the MFA user can log in to NWUI using the Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) key from Google Authenticator.

For the NetWorker Virtual Edition (NVE) appliance, the time settings can be modified using the following instructions:

Time Zone adjustments:

1. Check the current time zone:

timedatectl status

2. List all available time zones:

timedatectl list-timezones

3. Set the wanted time zone:

sudo timedatectl set-timezone <Your_Timezone>

4. Verify the change:

timedatectl

Manually set time:

1. Check the current date and time:

date

2. Set the new date and time:

sudo date -s "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS"

3. Update the hardware clock to match the system clock:

sudo hwclock --systohc

Network Time Protocol (NTP) configuration:

1. Open the /etc/ntp.conf file in a text editor with root privileges. For example, using vi:

sudo vi /etc/ntp.conf

2. Add your NTP server by including a line with the server keyword followed by the server's address. For example:

server 0.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 1.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 2.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 3.pool.ntp.org iburst

3. Save and close the file. In nano, you can do this by pressing ESC then enter :wq! to write the changes and exit.
4. Restart the NTP service to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart ntpd

5. Verify the NTP synchronization status:

ntpq -p