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Automated VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Workload Domain deployment using PowerVCF

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Using my Automated VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Lab Deployment script, you can quickly get to a functional VCF Management Domain which includes deploying the required Nested ESXi VMs and the Cloud Builder appliance, end-to-end automated deployment .


After recently enhancing the script to support the latest VCF 5.1 release and enabling users to also specify the Nested ESXi VMs that can be used to setup a VCF Workload Domain, I wanted to take it one step further and also automate the VCF Workload Domain deployment and utilizing the infrastructure that was setup in the initial deployment script.

Previously, if you wanted to create a Workload Domain, you would need to deploy the required Nested ESXi VMs, commission the ESXi hosts into SDDC Manager and then either use the Workload Domain creation wizard in SDDC Manager or manually construct the required JSON configuration file for an automated installation.

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Exploring the new vSphere Privilege Recorder in vSphere 8.0 Update 1

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Determining the minimum vSphere privileges that is required to perform a given vSphere operation (UI/API) has been a huge customer challenge to say the least. Strategies have included guessing along with trial and error by creating a custom vSphere Role and slowly removing privileges until you have identified the minimum required privileges. If you are familiar with the vSphere API and know exactly which API methods and properties are consumed, then you can use the vSphere API Reference since every method and property includes the specific privilege required in the documentation, but this method is pretty tedious and time consuming.

If only we had a way to record all the vSphere privilege that was used for a specific set of operation(s) in vCenter Server ... ?

Apparently I missed the initial news, but this was actually one of the new features that was introduced in vSphere 8.0 Update 1 called the vSphere Privilege Recorder! ?

UPDATE (07/25/24) - Looks like the PowerCLI team has productized this capability with a new cmdlet introduced in PowerCLI 13.3 called Get-VIPrivilegeReport

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Retrieving vCenter Server certificate (Machine, VMCA Root, STS & Trusted Root) details using the vSphere API 

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In the vSphere UI, users can easily view and manage all of their vCenter Server certificates by navigating to Administration->Certificate->Certificate Management as shown in the screenshot below.


There are four types of vCenter Server certificates: Machine SSL, VMware Certificate Authority, STS Signing Certificate and the Trusted Root. On the main summary view, we can see the validity of the certificate, which is useful to quickly determine if you need to plan on replacing a specific certificate. We can also get more information about a specific certificate by clicking on the "View Details".

A question recently came up internally asking whether there is a vSphere API to retrieve all of this information programmatically, especially the validity of the certificate?

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