ldapmodify

Automating the configuration of new logon banner for the vSphere Web Client in 6.0 Update 2

03.22.2016 by William Lam // 1 Comment

The ability to display a logon banner prior to logging into the vSphere Web Client UI is a new capability that was introduced with the release of vSphere 6.0 Update 2. In addition to the logon banner message, customers can also configure a mandatory consent check box requiring all users to accept prior to logging in. Below is a screenshot of the new logon banner in the vSphere Web Client, prior to login.

The configuration of the logon banner is only available in the Platform Services Controller (PSC) Administrator UI which can be accessed by opening a browser to the following URL: https://[PSC-HOSTNAME]/psc

Although there is currently not an API for administrating the various PSC configurations (being worked on for a future release of vSphere), it is still possible to automate the different aspects of the PSC. There are several options depending on your personal reference as well as environmental configurations.

Option 1: Use the /opt/vmware/bin/sso-config.sh utility on the PSC itself which is the simplest method but it does require either SSH or local shell access.

You first need to create a file that contains the message you wish to display in the logon banner. In this example I have created a filed called banner.txt that contains an example logon message. You can then run the following command which will allow you to set the banner as well as the title and whether to enable the consent check box:

/opt/vmware/bin/sso-config.sh -set_logon_banner /root/banner.txt -title 'Logon Disclaimer' -enable_checkbox N

If you wish to only configure the consent check box, you can just run the following command:

/opt/vmware/bin/sso-config.sh -set_logon_banner -enable_checkbox Y

If you wish to only configure the title, you can just run the following command:

/opt/vmware/bin/sso-config.sh -set_logon_banner -title 'vGhetto Disclaimer'

If you wish to only configure the banner message, you can just run the following command:

/opt/vmware/bin/sso-config.sh -set_logon_banner /root/banner.txt

If you wish to disable the logon banner feature, you can run the following command:

/opt/vmware/bin/sso-config.sh -disable_logon_banner

Option 2: Use the ldapmodify utility either locally on the PSC itself or from a remote system which I have previously written about here.

Disclaimer: Please take extreme caution when connecting to the vmdird database. You should take extreme care in making changes while in the database else you can negatively impact your environment.

In this example, I will be remotely connecting to the PSC from my desktop which is a Mac OS X system, but it can be any system which contains the ldapsearch and ldapmodify commands.

To query for the logon banner configurations, run the following ldapsearch command (specifying your environment details):

/usr/bin/ldapsearch -h 192.168.1.140 -w 'VMware1!' -x -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -b "cn=Tenants,cn=IdentityManager,cn=Services,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -s sub "objectclass=vmwSTSTenant"

From the output, we can see there are three properties which control the logon banner feature:

vmwSTSLogonBannerEnableCheckbox
vmwSTSLogonBannerTitle
vmwSTSLogonBanner

To configure the new logon banner, we first need to create a file that contains our configuration changes. To do so, create a file called change.ldif which contains the following (replace with your settings):

dn: cn=vghetto.local,cn=Tenants,cn=IdentityManager,cn=Services,dc=vghetto,dc=local
changetype: modify
replace: vmwSTSLogonBannerEnableCheckbox
vmwSTSLogonBannerEnableCheckbox: TRUE
-
replace: vmwSTSLogonBanner
vmwSTSLogonBanner: You void all warranty/safety by logging into vGhetto Datacenter, you have been warned :-)
-
replace: vmwSTSLogonBannerTitle
vmwSTSLogonBannerTitle: vGhetto Disclaimer

To apply the configuration, run the following ldapmodify command (specifying your environment details):

/usr/bin/ldapmodify -f change.ldif -h 192.168.1.140 -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -w 'VMware1!'

To completely disable the logon banner feature, create a new file called change2.ldif which contains the following (replace with your settings):

dn: cn=vghetto.local,cn=Tenants,cn=IdentityManager,cn=Services,dc=vghetto,dc=local
changetype: modify
delete: vmwSTSLogonBannerEnableCheckbox
-
delete: vmwSTSLogonBanner
-
delete: vmwSTSLogonBannerTitle

To apply the configuration, run the following ldapmodify command (specifying your environment details):

/usr/bin/ldapmodify -f change.ldif -h 192.168.1.140 -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -w 'VMware1!'

If you are interested in automating other aspects of the PSC admin configurations, be sure to check out these two articles here and here.

vCenter Server 6.0 Tidbits Part 11: Automate SSO Admin password change

06.09.2015 by William Lam // 1 Comment

After publishing my last article around the topic of Automating SSO Admin configurations using some simple LDAP commands which is applicable for both vSphere 5.5 and 6.0. It was pointed out to me by my buddy G. Blair Fritz who works over in our GSS Organization that another handy operation to share with customers is the ability to easily and quickly change an SSO Administrator password across multiple Platform Services Controllers (PSC). This is especially important for customers who have a password rotation policy set fourth by their Security team which most Enterprise customers have and are require to update their admin passwords every N-number of days.

Though you will not be able to query for an existing SSO Administrator's password (it is encrypted), you can however modify the password and this will require you to provide a valid SSO Administrator's account to connect with. To modify an LDAP entry, we will need to first create a file that contains the change, in the example here we are going to name it change.ldif and it should contain the following where the "replace" keyword shows which property is getting modified and the next line after shows the value that it will be changed to. Make sure to also replace the dc=vghetto with the name of your SSO Site Name

dn: cn=administrator,cn=users,dc=vghetto,dc=local
changetype: modify
replace: userpassword
userpassword: VMware1!

To apply the change, we will now run the following ldapmodify command and specifying our change.ldif configuration file:

/opt/likewise/bin/ldapmodify -f change.ldif -h 192.168.1.60 -D "cn=administrator,cn=users,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -w 'VMware1!!'

The really nice thing about this is that you can quickly change the password for your SSO Administrators across multiple Platform Services Controller and across multiple SSO Domains with a couple slight modifications to the command. How cool is that!? Thanks to Blair for sharing this awesome tidbit!

vCenter Server 6.0 Tidbits Part 10: Automating SSO Admin configurations

06.03.2015 by William Lam // 4 Comments

A common request that I have heard from customers is to have the ability to automate vCenter Single Sign-On configurations from a programmatic standpoint. Unfortunately, this is currently not possible today as a public API does not exist for SSO. Having spent some time exploring the underlying vmdir database which is just an LDAP-based system (here & here) and learning about a way to update a particular key per KB2070433 within the vmdir database which I have shown here and I have found here, I wanted to see if it was possible to query for these specific SSO Admin configurations and also be able to update these properties.

There are three main sections to the SSO Admin configurations that can be seen from the vSphere Web Client:

Password Policies
Lockout Policy
Token Policy

For each section, I have provided the specific ldapsearch query (please refer to this article as per-requisite) which can either be run directly on the VCSA if you are using that or a system that includes the ldapsearch command. You will need to replace the text highlighted in blue with your own environment details.

Password Policies & Lockout Policy

To view the following set of configurations, here is the ldapsearch query to use:

/opt/likewise/bin/ldapsearch -h 192.168.1.70 -w 'VMware1!' -x -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -b "cn=password and lockout policy,dc=vghetto,dc=local"

Here is a screenshot of the Password Policies as seen in the vSphere Web Client and their corresponding LDAP property names:

UI Setting	LDAP Attribute Name
Maximum lifetime	vmwPasswordLifetimeDays
Restrict reuse	vmwPasswordProhibitedPreviousCount
Maximum lenght	vmwPasswordMaxLength
At least special character	vmwPasswordMinSpecialCharCount
At least alphabetic character	vmwPasswordMinAlphabeticCount
At least uppercase character	vmwPasswordMinUpperCaseCount
At least lowercase character	vmwPasswordMinLowerCaseCount
At least numeric character	vmwPasswordMinNumericCount
Identical adjacent Characters	vmwPasswordMaxIdenticalAdjacentChars

Here is a screenshot of the Lock Policy as seen in the vSphere Web Client and their corresponding LDAP property names:

UI Setting	LDAP Attribute Name
Maximum number of failed login attempts	vmwPasswordChangeMaxFailedAttempts
Time interval between failures	vmwPasswordChangeFailedAttemptIntervalSec
Unlock time	vmwPasswordChangeAutoUnlockIntervalSec

Token Policy

To view the following configuration, here is the ldapsearch query to use:

/opt/likewise/bin/ldapsearch -h 192.168.1.70 -w 'VMware1!' -x -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -b "cn=Tenants,cn=IdentityManager,cn=Services,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -s sub "objectclass=vmwSTSTenant"

Here is a screenshot of the Token Policy as seen in the vSphere Web Client and their corresponding LDAP property names:

Token Policy

UI Setting	LDAP Attribute Name
Clock tolerance	vmwSTSClockTolerance
Maximum token renewal count	vmwSTSRenewCount
Maximum token delegation count	vmwSTSDelegationCount
Maximum bearer token lifetime	vmwSTSMaxBearerTokenLifetime
Maximum holder-of-key token lifetime	vmwSTSMaxHolderOfKeyTokenLifetime

Now that we know how to query for a particular SSO Configuration, here is how you can modify one of these properties. In the example below, we will be changing the life time of a password which dictates the frequency in which you need to change an SSO user's password. Using the "Password Policies" table above, we can see the that property name is called vmwPasswordLifetimeDays

To modify an LDAP entry, we will need to first create a file that contains the change, in the example here we are going to name it change.ldif and it should contain the following where the "replace" keyword shows which property is getting modified and the next line after shows the value that it will be changed to.

dn: cn=password and lockout policy,dc=vghetto,dc=local
changetype: modify
replace: vmwPasswordLifetimeDays
vmwPasswordLifetimeDays: 30

To apply the change, we will now run the following ldapmodify command and specifying our change.ldif configuration file:

/opt/likewise/bin/ldapmodify -f change.ldif -h 192.168.1.70 -D "cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=vghetto,dc=local" -w 'VMware1!'

If the change was successful, you can confirm by either querying the property again using the ldapquery command or just refreshing the SSO Configurations using the vSphere Web Client.