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vcenter server appliance

Using PowerCLI to automate the retrieval of VCSA Identity Sources

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Similiar to automating the retrieval of the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) password policies using PowerCLI, we can extend that example and leverage the Guest Operations API via Invoke-VMScript cmdlet to also retrieve the identity sources configured for a given VCSA without requiring SSH access.

I have created a new VCSA.psm1 PowerCLI Module which now includes the previous Get-VCSAPasswordPolicy function along with the new Get-VCSAIdentitySource function which accepts the name of the VCSA VM and root password to the VM as shown in the screenshot below.

If you need to add a specific Identity Source such as an Active Directory Domain which you have joined the VCSA, you can simply use Invoke-VMScript cmdlet and pass in the following command:

/opt/vmware/bin/sso-config.sh -add_identity_source -type nativead -domain vmware.corp

How to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) with a custom MAC Address?

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I recently had a question that came in from our field where a customer needed to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) with a specific MAC Address which was a requirement to ensure property connectivity within their network. This type of network requirement is not really new or unique, it is a common practice used to ensure only valid VMs with a static DHCP reservation can actually connect to a specific network but it certainly was the first time I had heard of this request for the VCSA.

With the default VCSA installer workflow, there is currently not a way to modify the network MAC Address which is automatically generated after the deployment of the OVA. Having said that, I have spent quite a bit of time exploring the various non-standard methods of deploying the VCSA in the past (see here, here and here) and with that information, you definitely can affect the MAC Address while still maintaining a valid VCSA deployment. With a bit of trial/error, there are two options depending if you are deploying the VCSA directly to an ESXi host (for initial setup) or to an existing vCenter Server. To demonstrate how this works, I have created a basic shell script called VCSAStaticMACAddress.sh which you can easily adapt to for a Windows-based environment.

The trick is that when you deploy to a vCenter Server endpoint, the required OVF properties are persisted which would allow you to only deploy the VCSA but not actually power it on and there you can easily augment a number of settings including the MAC Address. In the case of deploying directly to an ESXi host, OVF properties are not persisted and hence a challenge if you wish to make changes prior to powering on the VM. In earlier versions, it was possible to set these OVF properties by way of using the extraConfig property of the VM but it looks like this trick no longer works and requires a slight variation of the workflow which is described in the instructions below.

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How to exclude VCSA UI/CLI Installer from MacOS Catalina Security Gatekeeper?

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A couple of weeks ago I had upgraded my personal home computer to the latest MacOS Catalina (10.15) and one of the first issues I ran into was being able to access my vCenter Server. It turned out this was due to changes to MacOS security (which is a good thing) but certainly caught me and others off guard. In fact, I spent quite some time searching online and eventually found this workaround here.

After sharing this tidbit online (which several others also ran into) I came to learn that both Duncan Epping blogged about this issue back in Nov 2019 here and Christian Mohn blogged about this in Dec 2019 here. Sadly I did not come across either of their blogs using "NET::ERR_CERT_REVOKED macos catalina" in Google. I had assumed this was a Chrome issue and simply landed on the first few links and looking back, I now see Duncan's blog was #6 in the search results (doh!)

Today, I ran into another issue when attempting to use the VCSA CLI Installer, the following error was thrown:

“vcsa-deploy.bin” cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified


This is again due to a security change in MacOS Catalina which now prevents terminal-based applications which are not notarized from running. For a single application/binary, you can go into System Preferences->Security & Privacy and allow anyway. For more complex applications like the VCSA CLI Installer which has a number of libraries and scripts, this will take awhile and end up frustrating end users. The updated security enhancement is actually a good thing and I did not want to disable the Gatekeeper service but I was interested in disabling it for the VCSA CLI Installer. While searching online, I came across this Hashicorp Terraform thread where folks were having the exact same issue and I found out there was a way to disable the MacOS Security Gatekeeper for a specific application.

To do so, we just need to recursively remove the metadata attribute "com.apple.quarantine" for the extracted VCSA ISO by running the following command:

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine VMware-VCSA-all-6.7.0-Update-15132721

After the quarantine attribute has been removed, you can now run the VCSA CLI Installer (including UI Installer) without being prompted with an error. Hopefully VMware will consider notarizing future releases of the VCSA Installer and I will be sharing this feedback internally if it has not already.

Using PowerCLI to automate the retrieval of VCSA Password Policies

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I hope that every vSphere administrator or operator by now is familiar with the extremely powerful vSphere Guest Operations API functionality (details here and here), which can easily be consumed using PowerCLI's Invoke-VMScript cmdlet. If not, highly recommend you check out the links referenced. I know the GuestOps API is certainly my top favorite with sending VM keystrokes capability a very close second!

Not only does the GuestOps API unlock functionality that simply may not be possible (e.g. there's no API or automation interface) but it also enables automation within a VM without requiring any type of remote management services enabled (e.g. SSH or WinRM) or even networking to the VM for that matter!

The reason I am bringing all this up is that although there is not an API for managing and retrieving vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO) configurations which includes password policies, there is a way in which customers can still automate and retrieve this and other information by leveraging the GuestOps API. In fact, back in 2015 I demonstrated on how you can retrieve VCSA SSO password policy and configurations and we can simply apply the GuestOps API to help us automate this task. In addition, most customers do not enable SSH by default and we can still apply the GuestOps API technique and perform automation tasks to VSCSA without requiring SSH as described in this blog post back in 2016.

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Is a DNS server still required when using a Static IP for VCSA?

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When deploying a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), customers have two options for setting up a static network address: using either a hostname (Fully Qualified Domain Name) or just a static IP Address (e.g. no DNS). In the first option when using an FQDN, it should be no surprise that you need to also specify a valid DNS Server which the VCSA UI/CLI Installer will automatically validate both the forward and reverse address. This is the most common deployment model for customers in both production as well as for development environments such as a vSphere home lab.

In the second scenario, where a static IP Address is used, a DNS server is not required because we are NOT using an FQDN for the hostname but rather an IP Address. Having said that, if you have ever used the VCSA UI or CLI, you will find that the DNS Server entry is actually a required field and you can not proceed without providing an address.

VCSA UI Installer:

VCSA CLI Installer:

As mentioned earlier, we know that it should not be required but currently the VCSA Installer is a bit overly cautious in its pre-checks and does require a value today. This is something that has already been shared internally and the team will be relaxing this requirement in the future.

With that said, this leads us back to the original question posed in the blog title, do we need a valid DNS server when using a static IP for the VCSA?

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Enabling shell access for Active Directory users via SSH to vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)

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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, the process to enable this is pretty straight forward and simply requires two steps which I have outlined below.

Step 0 - Ensure that your VCSA and/or PSC is joined to Active Directory before proceeding to the next step. If not, take a look at the documentation here for more details.

Step 1 - Login to vSphere Web Client and under Administration->System Configuration->Nodes->Manage->Settings->Access, go ahead and enable boh SSH and bash shell options. The first setting turns on SSH to the VCSA and the second setting allows users (local, SSO and AD) to access the shell on the VCSA.


Step 2 - In the vSphere Web Client and under Administration->Single Sign-On->Users and Groups->Groups, select the SystemConfiguration.BaseShellAdministrators group and add either an AD User and/or Group that you wish to allow to access the shell.


Once you have completed the steps above, you can now SSH to your VCSA/PSC using the AD user (UPN format) that you had authorized earlier. In the example below, I am logging into one of my VCSA using user *protected email* and as you can see, I am placed into the appliance shell by default.


At this point I can access all the appliancesh commands just like I normally would if I had logged as a root or *protected email*.

If we wish to change to bash shell, we simply just type "shell" which will enable shell access, assuming you had performed Step 2.


One thing that I noticed is that the default home directory for the AD user is /var/lib/nobody and apparently that does not exists by default, so users end up in / directory by default after enabling shell access. I am not sure if this is also related, but the username shows up as nobody as you can see from the prompt. This is something I will share with Engineering to see if we can improve upon as I am sure most of you would rather see the user that is actually logged in.

The good news from an auditing and logging standpoint is that for operations that are logged, it does properly show the username even though the prompt is showing up as nobody.

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