VMware :: Adding limited privileged users

Our VMware monitoring plugin can try and reboot your server when required. In order to do so, the plugin will need proper login credentials. We recommend not to use root login to the server and instead create a priviliged user that can only Power on, Power Off & Reboot the server.

In the following guide, will explain how to do it.

Login to your server as root with vSphere Client. From the left menu choose the object you want to create the user for. That can be a single machine, or entire host.

Once you choosed a host / machine, click on “Local users & groups” from the right tabs, locate the mouse pointer at the white space, and right click it. This will open a menu, choose “Add”  –

Choose your user and password, and click “ok”. You can leave the UID and group empty, only the user & password is needed.

Next, from the breadcrumbs menu, click on “Home” –

Under the “Administration” section, click on “Roles”

Locate your mouse at the whitespace, and right click it. This will open a menu, click on “Add” –

Give your role a name (we used whmcsuer in the example) and under Virtual machine -> Interaction tick only the Power off, Power On & Reset boxed.

Now choose again the host / virtual machine that we create the user in –

From the tabs on the right, choose ‘Permissions” –

Locate your mouse at the whitespace, and right click it. This will open a menu, click on “Add Permission” –

Choose the role and assign the user to it (we created them both earlier) –

That’s all! Now you can try and login with vSphere client using the newly created user.