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Blocking vSphere HTML5 VM Console and allowing only Standalone VM Remote Console (VMRC)?

02.08.2023 by William Lam // 2 Comments

This was an interesting request that came up on the VMTN community forums asking whether it was possible to block users from accessing the vSphere HTML5 (H5) VM Console in vCenter Server and only allowing access to a VM console through the use of the Standalone VM Remote Console (VMRC) client? What is the use case for this you might ask, well it looks like VM screen resolution was getting change between the two clients and the administrator simply wanted to restrict access to the H5 VM Console and direct users to use only the VMRC Client.

At first, I could not see how this could be accomplished since all of their users already have the "Console interaction" privilege within vCenter Server which allows them to to interact with both VM Console interfaces. I was then reminded of an article that I wrote back in 2021 where a user wanted to restrict access to the vSphere UI interface while still allowing access to vCenter Server through the vSphere API, which used an access policy to restrict access based on a URI endpoint within the vCenter Server Tomcat application configuration.

This gave me an idea to experiment with and see if we could do the same and simply restrict the /ui/vmconsole endpoint which serves the H5 VM Console while still preserving VMRC access.

[Read more...]

Categories // vSphere, vSphere Web Client Tags // HTML5, vm console, vmrc

Five of my favorite enhancements in vSphere 7

06.30.2020 by William Lam // 2 Comments

It is very easy to focus on the speeds and feeds of a new major vSphere release such as vSphere 7 which also includes a TON of new and exciting capabilities. However, often times it is the tiny improvements that has the most significant impact to our end users, especially when it comes to usability and operations. In fact, this was further reinforced by Frank Denneman's post on the Reddit with similiar observations.

I have been using vSphere 7 since it was released back in April and I have been discovering a number of new vSphere UI enhancements that has really delighted my overall user experience. I had been sharing these enhancements on Twitter, but figured it was worth a blog post given most of these features were not well known.

Do you have a favorite new feature in vSphere 7 that might not be well known? If so, share by leaving a comment below.

1. Enhanced VM Summary

I’m really digging the new VM Summary view in the #h5client with #vSphere7, especially with details about any snapshots you might have running! My only pet peeve is the gap of space at the very top /cc @APrabhudev pic.twitter.com/IRofUvMpaQ

— William Lam (@lamw.bsky.social | @*protected email*) (@lamw) April 21, 2020

2. Update and Patch Notifications

First patch release for vSphere with Kubernetes is now available

See Release Notes for more details https://t.co/QxDYa7rmTr

Its also really cool to see the vSphere UI is also aware of the update and has nice notification along w/link to RN 🙂 pic.twitter.com/xKYJPfQRGs

— William Lam (@lamw.bsky.social | @*protected email*) (@lamw) May 19, 2020

3. ESXi Firmware and Driver View

I just noticed the new enhancements made to ESXi “Hardware” view in #h5client for vSphere 7. Really digging the Firmware section which cleanly & clearly lays out the various devices/components along the specific driver claiming each device which is super useful! pic.twitter.com/OsNPUDaPuj

— William Lam (@lamw.bsky.social | @*protected email*) (@lamw) June 15, 2020

4. ESXi Installation Date + Software Package Details

Pleasantly discovered two new #vSphere7 UI features this morning while using the #h5client

Navigate to ESXi Host->Configure->System->Packages

Can now see ESXi Install Date + all VIB/Components nicely listed!

Wrote about Install Date API 4yrs ago https://t.co/QXKQnGNvhj

/1 pic.twitter.com/4yYRCa9vut

— William Lam (@lamw.bsky.social | @*protected email*) (@lamw) June 28, 2020

5. Terminate "stuck" VM

In rare case you have pesky VM that is “stuck”, it looks like we’ve now exposed the Kill (Terminate) cmd under the VM Power Operations. No need for SSH/ESXCLI

I initially noticed this with the latest #VMWonAWS release but looks like its made its way into vSphere 7.0b too!

/2 pic.twitter.com/bszXumd65I

— William Lam (@lamw.bsky.social | @*protected email*) (@lamw) June 28, 2020

Here are two additional non-UI features that I came to learn about in vSphere 7 that you might also be interested in: Support for HTTPS using wget on ESXi and Guest Customization support for Instant Clones.

Categories // vSphere 7.0 Tags // HTML5, vSphere 7.0

vYetti - Fun animated vSphere Login UI customization

05.15.2018 by William Lam // 10 Comments

For those that have been asking about how to customize the vSphere Client Login UI to include this fun little animated login screen as shown below, you can find the complete instructions on my github repo: https://github.com/lamw/vyetti-vsphere-client-customization

I wanted to take a moment and give thanks and credit to the original author (Darin S) who created the animated login, which he referred to as an "Animated SVG Avatar". I remember seeing this on my Twitter stream a few months back where it was shared on codepen.io, which is a platform for web developers to easily show off their demos. From what I could gather, the original demo had used MorphSVGPlugin.min.js which is a Javascript library that provided the animation. Apparently, the use of this library required a membership which prevented anyone from consuming this outside of codepen.io for demo purposes. While searching online, I accidentally stumbled across another similiar project by Balram Chavan who developed an alternative solution simply using Angular 5. With Balram's solution, I was able to make the necessary minor modifications (thanks to Jeeyun from the Clairty team on helping me with some of my Anuglar questions) to get this fully incorporated into the vSphere Client UI. I am sure there are other improvements that can be made to the customization such as a more "clarity" look/feel as the old the old "blue marge" theme background is pretty dated but I will leave that to someone more creative than me 🙂

Categories // Home Lab, Not Supported, vSphere Web Client Tags // HTML5, vsphere web client

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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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