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

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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.

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Quick Tip - Easily host VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Offline Depot using Python SimpleHTTPServer with Authentication

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In IT, you never know when you need to quickly spin up a web server for hosting files ... One of my favorite and super easy way to do this is by leveraging Python's SimpleHTTPServer which can immediately serve files within a directory with this 1-liner:

python -m http.server 9000

This certainly beats standing up a full blown web server if you just need GET and HEAD operations.

If you do not require authentication for serving your files, then this solution fits the bill perfectly! However, if you require authentication, then I typically resort to deploying a full blown web server and use .htaccess to manage users and passwords.

For customers that have a need to host a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) offline depot or any VMware-based offline depot, the solution will typically require a web server due to the authentication requirements. With that said, I have recently been using an alternative method, especially if you just need to quickly host some files for say an upgrade or deployment.

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