vMA 4.1 - Active Directory IntegrationTip

The latest release of vMA 4.1 now supports Active Directory integration which can be used to centralize all authentication within a Windows environment. To join a vMA host to your Active Directory domain, you just need to use one simple command called domainjoin-cli which is part of Likewise's "Open" product.

Here is an example of vMA host joining an AD domain:

By default, Likewise "Open" is configured to not assume the current Active Directory Domain as the default. This means if you are authenticating against vMA via SSH connection, you will need to specify both the username and the full domain. (e.g. ssh username@domain.com@vMA-host)

Here is an example of logging into vMA using AD credentials:

This can be pretty tedious to type out everytime, especially if you have a very long domain name. However, this can be easily modified to assume the default domain.

You will need to edit /etc/likewise/lsassd.conf and uncomment "assume-default-domain = yes" and then save your changes:

sudo vi /etc/likewise/lsassd.conf

You will need to reload the configurations for the changes to take effect by running the following utility:

sudo /opt/likewise/bin/lw-refresh-configuration

Now, you can login by just specifying the username without having to provide the full AD domain name.

I actually wrote an article about a month ago on configuring Likewise "Open" AD intergration on vMA before the release of vSphere 4.1. The article goes through the process of setting up "Open" on vMA 4.0 and also documents the change of the default domain. For more Likewise commands and details, check out the article above.

Update1:
If you would like to add an AD group to sudoers file, you need to edit /etc/sudoers file. You need to make sure you escape the initial forward slash and any white spaces that maybe in the group name. In this example, we have a group called "VI Admins" that you would like all users to be able to login to vMA using their AD credentials and perform operations using sudo.

1. Edit /etc/sudoers using vi-admin account, make sure you use 'sudo':

[vi-admin@kate ~]$ sudo vi /etc/sudoers

2. Add the following towards the bottom of the file:

%PRIMP-IND\\VI\ Admins ALL=(ALL) ALL

Note: We're escaping both the initial forward slash and the space

3. Verify user can now sudo by querying sudo operatoins the user is allowed to execute:

[primp@kate ~]$ id
uid=1058014289(primp) gid=1058013696(domain^admins) groups=1058013696(domain^admins),1058014440(vi^admins)

[primp@kate ~]$ sudo -l
Password:
User primp may run the following commands on this host:
(ALL) ALL