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Updated vSphere Login UI customizations for vSphere 7.x & 8.x

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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? ?

via GIPHY

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vSphere Code Capture is your ChatGPT for vSphere Automation

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Have you ever tried to automate a specific vSphere operation but were sure which vSphere API to use or if known, how to actually use it? This is something I frequently see and get asked about quite often!

Did you know about this hidden little gem that has been available since vSphere 6.7, built right into the vSphere UI that can help with these questions!?


It is called vSphere Code Capture or what I typically refer to as your ChatGPT for vSphere Automation, but without the hallucinations 😀

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Generating a vSphere UI link to a specific Virtual Machine

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For some organizations, after a VM has been provisioned, it is customary to send a notification (email, slack, etc) to their end users with login credentials including the URL for the vSphere UI.

Typically, the provided URL is just the vCenter Server base URL and end users would then have to login and navigate to their specific VM(s) within the vSphere Inventory. A question was brought up on whether a better end user experience could be provided to their internal users? They were interested in providing their end users with a specific URL link that would take them directly to their VM, which they can also bookmark for future uses.

Furthermore, the customer was also interested in generating the URL programmatically, so that it can be incorporated into their existing provisioning workflows.

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