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Quick Tip - Audit vCenter Server Role & Permission Usage

02.26.2025 by William Lam // 2 Comments

vCenter Server ships out of the box a number of system and custom roles, which can be used or users can create their own custom roles containing the required privileges. If you wanted to understand which roles are actively being used, the following PowerCLI snippet can help provide insights to roles that have been assigned. Furthermore, the script will also output to a file, that contains all he privileges defined for the vCenter Roles that are in active use.

$roles = Get-VIRole
$permissions = Get-VIPermission

$results = @{}
foreach ($permission in $permissions) {
    $role = $permission.Role
    if($results.ContainsKey($role)) {
        $results[$role]+=1
    } else {
        $results[$role]=1
    }
}

Write-Host "`nTotal Roles: $($roles.count)"
Write-Host "Total Roles Used: $($results.count)"
Write-Host "Role Usage:"

$results.GetEnumerator() | Sort-Object -Property Value -Descending

$outfile = "used-roles.txt"
foreach ($key in $results.keys) {
    $role = Get-VIRole $key
    if(!$role.IsSystem) {
        $key | Out-File -Append -LiteralPath $outfile
        "=========================================================" | Out-File -Append -FilePath $outfile
        $role.ExtensionData.Privilege | Out-File -Append -LiteralPath $outfile
        "" | Out-File -Append -LiteralPath $outfile
    }
}

Here is an example output of running the script:


Here is an example output from used-roles.txt file that is generated, which contains the list of privileges for each role that is in use:

Categories // Automation, PowerCLI, vSphere Tags // permission, vCenter Server

128GB memory mini PCs is now a reality with 64GB DDR5 SODIMM

02.19.2025 by William Lam // 12 Comments

The long awaited 64GB DDR5 SODIMM memory modules from Crucial was just released this week! 😁


I was so excited about the news, I quickly splurged on a pair of these brand new modules, which are currently priced at $364 USD on Amazon! 😅💰

[Read more...]

Categories // ESXi, Home Lab, VMware Cloud Foundation Tags // DDR5, SODIMM

Setup HTTPS for OIDC endpoint with Authentik and Keycloak for vCenter Server or VCF Identity Federation

02.13.2025 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

If you have been following my recent adventures in playing with both Authentik and Keycloak as an OAuth/OIDC Identity Provider (IdP) for use with vCenter Server or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Identity Federation, you can take it one step further and authenticate with a Yubico YubiKey or Apple Face ID for additional security.

In my original setup, the OIDC endpoint provided by both Authentik and Keycloak was using HTTP and works perfectly fine with both vCenter Server and SDDC Manager for a VCF-based environment. With that said, if you have a requirement to serve the OIDC endpoint over HTTPS, which is a requirement for using WebAuthn (e.g. YubiKey, Face Id, etc), then some additional configurations are required on both the identity provider as well on the vCenter Server side depending on the type of TLS certificate you are using.

[Read more...]

Categories // VCSA, VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere, vSphere 8.0 Tags // Authentik, Identity Provider, Keycloak, OAuth, OIDC, vCenter Server

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Author

William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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