Not sure when it happened, but I have been binging self-hosted identity providers like Netflix shows, this season features Authentik, KeyCloak, Synology SSO and Pocket ID.
To add to my collection, I was recently asked whether Zitadel could also work as an identity provider with vCenter Server and/or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)?
As you can see from the screenshot above, you have your answer 😁
Having explored various OIDC identity providers, including Authentik, KeyCloak and Synology SSO, I recently came across Pocket ID, a super basic OIDC provider. Instead of using traditional username and passwords, Pocket ID only supports passkeys authentication based on the WebAuthn standard, which means you can login to your vCenter Server or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) environment using a physical device like a Yubico YubiKey or Apple Face ID.
Disclaimer: Pocket ID is not an officially supported vCenter Server IdP, please use at your own risk.
It has been more than a decade since the vSphere UI has transition to an HTML-based interface and while not officially supported, users do have the ability to customize the login screen for a variety of use cases from internal disclaimers and compliance to customer branding as I have demonstrated in the past.
Although the general modification process has mostly stayed consistent, there has been subtle changes across vCenter Server releases which I have blogged about here, here and here.
I recently had a few folks ask whether the previous guidance was still applicable to the latest vCenter Server releases and given the previous articles were focused on vSphere 6.0 and 6.5, I figured its time for an update 🙂
Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by VMware, please use at your own risk.
Here is an example of one of my development vCenter Servers running the latest 8.0 Update 3 release ... I wonder if would make the cut as a feature enhancement for a default theme? 😅