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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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Workspace One Access (vIDM) Powershell Module to automate creating 3rd Party Identity Provider

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One of the projects I am currently working on involves  Workspace One Access (formally VMware Identity Manager) and configuring a 3rd Party Identity Provider for Identity Federation. As with anything, using the UI for the first time to validate the workflow is perfectly fine for me but after that, I normally prefer to automate, especially as I was rebuilding this particular setup a few times. I saw that Workspace One Access (WSO Access) had a REST API but I was surprised that there were no APIs for actually managing the configurations.


I figured before giving up, I should see at least see how the UI was performing these operations as "some API" should exists and started up one of my favorite browser tools Chrome Developer Console to inspect the HTTP requests. I came to learn there were an additional set of "Jersey" APIs (no background on the Jersey name, but its part of the API URI) that might do exactly what I was looking for. After a bit of trial/error, I was able to fully automate the creation of both a WSO Access Directory as well as 3rd Party Identity Provider.

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Decoding Intel NUC "Canyon" Generation with CPU "Lake" Generation Codenames

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Swift Canyon, Baby Canyon, Bean Canyon, Provo Canyon, Kaby Lake, Whiskey Lake, Coffee Lake ... these are just some of the Intel codenames that either refer to a NUC platform or CPU generation. I can understand the need for codenames, however for consumers, the various names are often confusing and being able to grok at which system is the "latest" is not always trivial. In some cases there are multiple updates to different generations of the platform all happening within a short period of time and most online sites may swap between codenames and the official "Nth" generation nomenclature.

I have been working with the Intel NUC platform from a VMware standpoint since the 6th Generation back in 2016 and even I still get confused at times on what is the latest "Canyon" NUCs and their respective "Lake" CPU generations. I can not imagine how complicated this might feel for some of our customers who are updating their VMware homelab every couple of years or someone who is just starting out for the first time. To not only help keep myself sane as I often get asked about Homelabs, literally on a weekly basis and to help educate others within out community, I have created a document which maps all Intel NUCs (full height) to their respective Nth generation along with the respective CPU architecture used in each platform.

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