When configuring Ops Manager for VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) from an Authentication standpoint, you can either chose local authentication or use an external identity provider. The former means you are managing local users that reside within the User Account and Authentication (UAA) component of Ops Manager, which may be okay for a lab or proof […]
Changing "Password will expire in X days" notification for Active Directory users in vSphere Web/H5 Client
When logging into the vCenter Server using either the vSphere Web (Flex) or H5 Client, one of the validation checks that is automatically performed by the server is to check the current users password expiry. If you account expiry is less than the current password expiry configuration, then you will see the yellow notification pop […]
Enabling shell access for Active Directory users via SSH to vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)
I had a question the other day on whether it was possible to enable shell access for Active Directory users when logging into the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) via SSH? The answer is yes and though this is documented here, it is not very clear whether this is only applicable to SSO-based users only. In any case, […]
All replicated Platform Services Controller should be joined to Active Directory
Last week a colleague of mines was setting up a new vSphere 6.0 environment which contained a vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller (PSC) for our Management vSphere Cluster and another vCenter Server also with an external PSC for our Compute vSphere Cluster. The PSC’s were configured to replicate with each other which […]
Easily automate ESXi 6.0 Active Directory join using domainjoin-cli
A nice little enhancement that I recently came across in ESXi 6.0 is the inclusion of the Likewise utility called domainjoin-cli which allows you to join a system to an Active Directory Domain. Previously, if you wanted to automate the process of joining an ESXi host to an Active Directory Domain, you had to either […]