PowerShell Script to Configure an NSX-T Load Balancer for the vRealize Suite & Workspace ONE Access

As part of my role in the VMware Hyper-converged Business Unit (HCIBU) I spend a lot of time working with new product versions testing integrations for next-gen VMware Validated Designs and Cloud Foundation. A lot of my focus is on Cloud Operations and Automation (vROPs, vRLI, vRA etc) and consequently I regularly need to deploy environments to perform integration testing. I will typically leverage existing automation where possible and tend to create my own when i find gaps. Once such gap was the ability to use PowerShell to interact with the NSX-T API. For anyone who is familiar with setting up a load balancer for the vRealize Suite in NSX-T – there are a lot of manual clicks required. So i set about creating some PowerShell functions to make it a little less tedious and to speed up getting my environments setup so i could get to the testing faster.

There is comprehensive NSX-T API documentation posted on code.vmware .com that I used to decipher the various API endpoints required to complete the various tasks:

  • Create the Load Balancer
  • Create the Service Monitors
  • Create the Application Profiles
  • Create the Server Pools
  • Create the Virtual Servers

The result is a PowerShell module with a function for each of the above and a corresponding JSON file that is read in for the settings for each function. I have included a sample JSON file to get you started. Just substitute your values.

Note: You must have a Tier-1 & associated segments created. (I’ll add that functionality when i get a chance!)

PowerShell Module, Sample JSON & Script are posted to Github here

Cleanup failed requests in vRA UI

From time to time a request in vRA will fail for whatever reason. When this happens you will see the request status as failed on the requests tab. There is a greyed out delete button that for whatever reason cannot be used to delete the failed request even when logged in as a full tenant/iaas/cloud admin.

 

There are several reasons you may want to remove failed requests…maybe you may need to deliver a demo to the CIO on some new functionality and failures in the UI never look good…or maybe you just have mild OCD like me and like to cleanup any failures to restore the illusion of all being good with the world! 🙂 Whatever your reasons here is a procedure that you can use.

Disclaimer: I dont believe this procedure if fully supported by VMware so please proceed with caution.

  • SSH to your primary vRA appliance
  • Run the following to view the contents of /etc/vcac/server.xml
    • less /etc/vcac/server.xml
  • Look for the line with password= and copy everything between the “”. This password will allow you to connect to the vRA PostGres DB

  • Run the following command with the password from the above step
    • vcac-config prop-util -d –p “s2enc~K6RsAv5WGpoAt+qsnZPrKErxZ0kU1npeK/G5iMzyaWI=”
  • Next change to the postgres user
    • su postgres
  • Change to the postgres directory
    • cd /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin
  • Connect to the vcac database
    • ./psql vcac -W
  • Enter the password from server.xml
  • vRA requests are store in the cat_request table. To enable us to delete a request we first need the request id. Query the cat_request table for your request ID using the requestnumber (In my case the offending failed requestnumber is 63, as seen in the first column in the screenshot above. replace with your requestnumber)
    • SELECT id,requestnumber FROM cat_request where requestnumber = ’63’;

vRA XaaS blueprint requests are referenced in 1 further table, cat_requestevent. This entriy must be deleted before you can delete the request.

  • Run the following commands to delete the request.
  • delete from cat_requestevent where request_id =’4dc74fc2-f855-4eb1-94d6-65481b702acd’;
  • delete from cat_request where id =’4dc74fc2-f855-4eb1-94d6-65481b702acd’;

The offending failed request should now be gone from the requests list in vRA!

vRA Network and Security Inventory Data Collection Failed

I’ve been playing around with Dell EMC RP4VM & vRA and needed to setup cross vCenter NSX in my lab. I’m not going to go into that setup as there are many blogs on the subject. What i will cover is an error i hit when trying to do Network and Security Inventory data collections on one of my NSX endpoints. The error from the Dem logs in vRA (Infrastructure > Monitoring > Log ) was as follows:


Workflow 'vSphereVCNSInventory' failed with the following exception:
'object' does not contain a definition for 'clusters'

After digging around for VMware KBs and blogs on the subject and coming up empty handed i went back to review my entire setup and discovered i had missed adding a vCenter cluster to the universal transport zone on the offending NSX endpoint, which is my DR site.

Once i rectified this the Network and Security Inventory Data Collection worked as expected.

Setup multiple vRA tenants using powershell and the vRA7 REST API

Following on from my post on Creating a local user in vRA7 using the REST API i wanted to try and script the entire process of creating multiple vRealize Automation 7 tenants as in our lab as we often need to spin up multiple tenants for testing or development purposes.

Some assumptions:

  • Each tenant has the same prefix of “dev-” and is appended with a 3 digit number starting at “001”
  • Each tenant gets the same local user created with matching credentials
  • Each tenant gets the same AD directory added
  • Each tenant gets the same AD groups added

This script will do the following:

  • Log into the default tenant
  • Create a new tenant
  • Create a local user for the tenant
  • Add the local user as a tenant & IaaS admin
  • Log into the new tenant as the local user
  • Setup identity store directories
  • Log back into the default tenant
  • Edit the new tenant
  • Add domain users/groups as tenant & IaaS admins
  • Log into the new tenant as a tenant and IaaS admin and start configuring the tenant

So as to avoid the requirement to edit the powershell script directly i put all configuration variables in an external .cfg file. This file needs to be placed in the same directory as the powershell script.

Firstly here is the config file contents. Edit each variable to match your environment. Modify the numberOfTenants variable to set the number of tenants you want to create. The example below will create 20 tenants.

[vRA FQDN]
VRA=vra-vip.domain.local

[vRA Credentials to acquire authentication token]
vRAUsername=administrator@vsphere.local
vRAPassword=Password123!
vRADefaultTenant=vsphere.local

[Create tenant details]
numberOfTenants=2
tenantIDPrefix=dev-
tenantURLPrefix=dev-
tenantNamePrefix=dev-
tenantDescription=DevelopmentTenant
tenantemailAddress=admin@vsphere.local

[Local Admin User Details]
firstName=vRA
lastName=Admin
emailAddress=vraadmin@vsphere.local
description=vRAAdmin
locked=false
disabled=false
password=Password123!
domain=vsphere.local
userName=vraadmin
name=vraadmin

[Tenant Directory Details]
adDomain=domain.local
adDomainalias=Domain
type=AD
adUserNameDn=cn=adbind_vra,OU=EHC,DC=domain,DC=local
adBindPassword=Password123!
adURL=ldap://domain.local:389
adGroupBaseSearchDn=ou=EHC,DC=domain,DC=local
adUserBaseSearchDn=ou=EHC,DC=domain,DC=local

[AD Domain Groups to add as Tenant & IaaS Admins]
tenantAdmins=EHC_Tenant_Admins@domain.local
tenantRoleID=CSP_TENANT_ADMIN
iaasAdmins=EHC_IaaS_Admins@domain.local
iaasRoleID=COM_VMWARE_IAAS_IAAS_ADMINISTRATOR

And here is the script to create the tenants. It is broken up into multiple functions

# Script to create vRA7 Tenants in bulk
# Ensure you update the associated cfg file
# with the details of your vRA environment
# and details of the tenants you wish to create
# Created by Brian O'Connell
# Version 1.0.0

# Import configuration variables from external cfg file
Get-Content createvRATenants.cfg | Foreach-Object{
if ($_.length -gt 0) {
 $var = $_ -Split '=',2
 New-Variable -Name $var[0] -Value $var[1]
 }
 } 

Function getvRAAuthToken {
# Construct credentials from config file
$credentials=@{username=$vRAUsername;password=$vRAPassword;tenant=$vRADefaultTenant}
############# Get Auth token ###############
$headers=@{
 "Accept"="application/json"
}
$Global:token = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://$($VRA)/identity/api/tokens" -Method Post -Headers $headers -ContentType application/json -Body (ConvertTo-Json $credentials) | Select -ExpandProperty id
Write-Host "vRA Authentication Token Acquired" -ForegroundColor Green
 } 

Function createvRATenant {
 # ############ Create Tenant ###############
$headers = @{"Accept" = "application/json"}
$headers.Add("Authorization", "Bearer $token")

#Create the Tenant
for ($firstTenantNumber=1; $firstTenantNumber -le $numberOfTenants; $firstTenantNumber++)
{
 New-Variable -Name "var$firstTenantNumber" -Value $firstTenantNumber
 $tenantNumber = $firstTenantNumber.ToString("000")
$tenantid = -join ($tenantIDPrefix,$tenantNumber)
$tenantURL = -join ($tenantURLPrefix,$tenantNumber)
$tenantName = -join ($tenantNamePrefix,$tenantNumber)
$tenantBody= @"
{
 "@type": "Tenant",
 "id": "$tenantid",
 "urlName": "$tenantURL",
 "name": "$tenantName",
 "description": "$tenantDescription",
 "contactEmail": "$tenantemailAddress"
}
"@ 

$createTenant = Invoke-RestMethod -Method PUT -URI "https://$($VRA)/identity/api/tenants/$($tenantID)" -headers $headers -ContentType application/json -body $tenantBody
Write-Host "Tenant $($tenantName) created successfully" -ForegroundColor Green
}
 }

Function createvRALocalAdminUser {
 ############# Create Local Admin User ###############

$headers = @{"Accept" = "application/json"}
$headers.Add("Authorization", "Bearer $token")
$userBody= @"
{ "@type": "User",
 "firstName": "$firstName",
 "lastName": "$lastName",
 "emailAddress": "$emailAddress",
 "description": "$description",
 "locked": false,
 "disabled": false,
 "password": "$password",
 "domain": "$domain",
 "userName": "$userName",
 "principalId": {
 "domain": "$domain",
 "name": "$name"
 }
}
"@

for ($firstTenantNumber=1; $firstTenantNumber -le $numberOfTenants; $firstTenantNumber++)
{
 New-Variable -Name "var$firstTenantNumber" -Value $firstTenantNumber
 $tenantNumber = $firstTenantNumber.ToString("000")
 $tenantid = -join ($tenantIDPrefix,$tenantNumber)
#Create the user
$createUser = Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post -URI "https://$($VRA)/identity/api/tenants/$($tenantID)/principals" -headers $headers -ContentType "application/json" -body $userBody
Write-Host "Local Admin User for tenant $($tenantid) created successfully" -ForegroundColor Green
} 

 }

Function updatevRALocalAdminUserRoles {
 ############# Add Local Admin User to Tenant & IaaS Admin groups ###############

$headers = @{"Accept" = "application/json"}
$headers.Add("Authorization", "Bearer $token")
$principal = "vraadmin@vsphere.local"
$roleIDs = @("CSP_TENANT_ADMIN","COM_VMWARE_IAAS_IAAS_ADMINISTRATOR")

for ($firstTenantNumber=1; $firstTenantNumber -le $numberOfTenants; $firstTenantNumber++)
{
 New-Variable -Name "var$firstTenantNumber" -Value $firstTenantNumber
 $tenantNumber = $firstTenantNumber.ToString("000")
 $tenantid = -join ($tenantIDPrefix,$tenantNumber)
#Add the user to tenant & IaaS admins
foreach ($roleID in $roleIDs) {
$makeUserAdmin = Invoke-RestMethod -Method PUT -URI "https://$($VRA)/identity/api/authorization/tenants/$($tenantID)/principals/$($principal)/roles/$($roleID)" -headers $headers -body "{}"
}
Write-Host "Local Admin User Added to Tenant & IaaS Admins for tenant $($tenantid) " -ForegroundColor Green
 }
 }

Function createvRATenantDirectory {
 ############# Add AD Tenant directory ###############
$headers = @{"Accept" = "application/json"}
$headers.Add("Authorization", "Bearer $token")

$directoryBody= @"
{"@type": "IdentityStore",
"domain": "$adDomain",
"name": "$adDomain",
"alias": "$adDomainalias",
"type": "$type",
"userNameDn": "$adUserNameDn",
"password": "$adBindPassword",
"url": "$adURL",
"groupBaseSearchDn": "$adGroupBaseSearchDn",
"userBaseSearchDn": "$adUserBaseSearchDn"
}
"@
for ($firstTenantNumber=1; $firstTenantNumber -le $numberOfTenants; $firstTenantNumber++)
{
 New-Variable -Name "var$firstTenantNumber" -Value $firstTenantNumber
 $tenantNumber = $firstTenantNumber.ToString("000")
 $tenantid = -join ($tenantIDPrefix,$tenantNumber)
#Create the directory
$createDirectory = Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post -URI "https://$($VRA)/identity/api/tenants/$($tenantID)/directories" -headers $headers -ContentType "application/json" -body $directoryBody
Write-Host "Tenant Directory Created for tenant $($tenantid) " -ForegroundColor Green
}

 }

Function addDomainGroupstovRAAdmins {
############## Add AD Domain Groups to vRA Tenant & IaaS Admin groups ###############

$headers = @{"Accept" = "application/json"}
$headers.Add("Authorization", "Bearer $token")

#Add the user to tenant & IaaS admins
for ($firstTenantNumber=1; $firstTenantNumber -le $numberOfTenants; $firstTenantNumber++)
{
 New-Variable -Name "var$firstTenantNumber" -Value $firstTenantNumber
 $tenantNumber = $firstTenantNumber.ToString("000")
 $tenantid = -join ($tenantIDPrefix,$tenantNumber)
$addTenantAdmins = Invoke-RestMethod -Method PUT -URI "https://$($VRA)/identity/api/authorization/tenants/$($tenantID)/principals/$($tenantAdmins)/roles/$($tenantRoleID)" -headers $headers -body "{}"

$addIaaSAdmins = Invoke-RestMethod -Method PUT -URI "https://$($VRA)/identity/api/authorization/tenants/$($tenantID)/principals/$($iaasAdmins)/roles/$($iaasRoleID)" -headers $headers -body "{}"
Write-Host "Domain groups added to as tenant & IaaS admins for tenant $($tenantid) " -ForegroundColor Green
}
 }

# Call All functions to setup tenants
getvRAAuthToken; createvRATenant; createvRALocalAdminUser; updatevRALocalAdminUserRoles; createvRATenantDirectory; addDomainGroupstovRAAdmins 

Distributed vRA validation script

From time to time a distributed vRA deployment can have issues…here is a quick script to verify and validate the important components are up and functioning…without the need to log into multiple components. Here is a diagram of my distributed vRA setup

Distributed vRA v4

And here is the script! It has multiple functions to do the following

  • Basic ping tests to each component
  • Get the status of all vRA component services
  • Test the Web & manager server URLs

# Script to check the status of each component of a distributed vRA deployment
# Modify the hostnames to match your environment
$vRAAppliance01FQDN = "vra01.domain.local"
$vRAAppliance02FQDN = "vra02.domain.local"
$vRAWeb01FQDN = "web01.domain.local"
$vRAWeb02FQDN = "web02.domain.local"
$vRAManager01FQDN = "manager01.domain.local"
$vRAManager02FQDN = "manager02.domain.local"
$vRADEM01FQDN = "demw01.domain.local"
$vRADEM02FQDN = "demw02.domain.local"
$vRAAgent01FQDN = "agent01.domain.local"
$vRAAgent02FQDN = "agent02.domain.local"
$vRAComponentServiceURL = "https://vra-vip.domain.local/component-registry/services/status/current"
$webVIPURL = "https://web-vip.domain.local/WAPI"
$managerVIPURL = "https://manager-vip.domain.local/VMPS2"



### DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE ###



Function pingHosts {
@"
===============================================================================
Performing basic ping test to each defined component
===============================================================================
"@
$vms = @($vRAAppliance01FQDN, $vRAAppliance02FQDN, $vRAWeb01FQDN, $vRAWeb02FQDN, $vRAManager01FQDN, $vRAManager02FQDN, $vRADEM01FQDN, $vRADEM02FQDN, $vRAAgent01FQDN, $vRAAgent02FQDN)
$collection = $()
foreach ($vm in $vms)
{
 $status = @{ "ServerName" = $vm; "TimeStamp" = (Get-Date -f s) }
 if (Test-Connection $vm -Count 1 -ea 0 -Quiet)
 { 
 $status["Ping Results"] = "Up"
 } 
 else 
 { 
 $status["Ping Results"] = "Down" 
 }
 New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $status -OutVariable serverStatus
 $collection += $serverStatus

}
 }
 
Function testvRAServices {
@"
===============================================================================
Getting Status of all vRA component services
===============================================================================
"@
Write-Host "Checking status of vRA Component Services" -ForegroundColor Yellow
# Request Service Information from $vRAComponentServiceURL
$vRAURL = Invoke-WebRequest $vRAComponentServiceURL
# Convert the Json response
$json = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $vRAURL.content
# Get Service name & status
$serviceInfo = $json.content
# Loop through each service
foreach ($service in $serviceInfo) {
# Get the Service Name
$serviceName = $service.serviceName
# Get the Service status
$serviceStatus = $service.serviceStatus.serviceInitializationStatus
# If Service Status is blank report it as BLANK POSSIBLY STOPPED
 if (!$serviceStatus) {
 $serviceStatus = "BLANK - POSSIBLY STOPPED?"
 }
# If Service Status is FAILED print to screen in red 
if ($serviceStatus -eq "FAILED") {
 write-host "$serviceName $serviceStatus" -ForeGroundColor Red
 }
# Otherwise print to screen as normal (Remove this if you only want to report failed services) 
 else {
 Write-Host "$serviceName $serviceStatus"}
 }

}


Function testWebVIP {
@"
===============================================================================
Checking status of vRA Web API URL
===============================================================================
"@
Write-Host "Testing IaaS Web Service VIP URL $webVIPURL" -ForegroundColor Yellow
# Create Web Request
$HTTP_Request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($webVIPURL)

# Get a response
$HTTP_Response = $HTTP_Request.GetResponse()

# Get the HTTP code
$HTTP_Status = [int]$HTTP_Response.StatusCode

If ($HTTP_Status -eq 200) { 
 Write-Host "IaaS Web Service is OK!" -ForegroundColor Green
 # Close HTTP request
$HTTP_Response.Close()
}
Else {
 Write-Host "IaaS Web Service is not responding. Restart IIS on Web01. If that does not resolve then Reboot Web01" -ForegroundColor Red
}
 }
 
Function testMgrVIP {
@"
===============================================================================
Checking status of vRA Manager API URL
===============================================================================
"@
Write-Host "Testing IaaS Manager Service VIP URL $managerVIPURL" -ForegroundColor Yellow
# Create Web Request
$HTTP_Request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($managerVIPURL)

# Get a response
$HTTP_Response = $HTTP_Request.GetResponse()

# Get the HTTP code
$HTTP_Status = [int]$HTTP_Response.StatusCode

If ($HTTP_Status -eq 200) { 
 Write-Host "IaaS Manager Service is OK!" -ForegroundColor Green
 # Close HTTP request
$HTTP_Response.Close()
}
Else {
 Write-Host "IaaS Manager Service is not responding. Ensure all vRA services are running on manager01. If that does not resolve then Reboot manager01" -ForegroundColor Red
}
 } 
 

 pingHosts; testvRAServices; testWebVIP; testMgrVIP

The function pingHosts is a basic ping test to each defined vRA component

The function testvRAServices was an interesting one to write as I’m not overly familiar with working with APIs so it was a learning experience. I wanted to be able to report the status of all vRA services listed on the VAMI administration UI of a vRA appliance (https://vra:5480). The URL that the services are listed on is https://vra-vip.domain.local/component-registry/services/status/current so using the powershell Invoke-WebRequest you get back the page information.

Invoke-WebRequest

Line 56 in the script puts the page contents into a variable we can work with. You can see that the information we want is stored in Content (ServiceStatus) in Json format so you need to take that Json and convert it to  to powershell readable text using the ConvertFrom-Json function (ConvertFrom-Json converts a JSON-formatted string to a custom object (PSCustomObject) that has a property for each field in the JSON string) Line 58 does this

We then put each service into the $serviceinfo variable and loop through them to get the service name and service status.

Side note here: Originally I was querying $json.content.serviceStatus to get the details i wanted but i noticed I wasnt getting a full list of services, i was getting some blank content and also some duplicate service names. This is how i was doing it

$vRAURL = Invoke-WebRequest "https://vra-vip.vlab.local/component-registry/services/status/current" 
$json = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $vRAURL.content 
$serviceInfo = $json.content.serviceStatus | Select serviceName,serviceInitializationStatus $serviceInfo 

Here is that that returns. As you can see its not the full list and there is a duplicate entry so its not much use

Duplicate Results

I dug a little into the API and it seems that it does indeed contain inconsistent information. Here is an excerpt with some issues where the actual service name is content-management but the serviceStatus reports the name as advanced-designer-service

Service Name issue

So to get an accurate list i queried the serviceName field to get the name and the serviceStatus.serviceInitializationStatus to get the service status. Unfortunately doing it this way doesnt allow creating a nice formatted table (at least i havent figured out how to do it yet!) but i did get it to print out each service & status on the same line.

Line 68: In my lab i use a vRO appliance so the internal vRO service on the vRA appliance is stopped. The service status comes back blank so i added a check to report blank service status as “BLANK – POSSIBLY STOPPED?”.

Line 72: I also added a check to print any failed services in red so they stand out.

The testWebVIP and testManagerVIP functions use the powershell System.Net.WebRequest to get the HTTP status code for a given URL. If the status code comes back as 200 then everything is ok. If not there is an issue with your IaaS components

So there you have it. A quick way to verify the status of all of the important vRealize Automation components and services. In my example below the iaas-service is in a failed state (The driving reason for creating this script! 🙂 )

Script Results

Create a local Tenant user in vRA7 using the rest API

VMware vRealize Automation 7.x is the latest version of VMware’s cloud automation software. With the new version comes a change in the way tenants (and user roles for same) are setup. In previous versions you would do the following to create a tenant

  • Log into the default tenant
  • Create a new tenant
  • Add an identity store
  • Add domain users/groups as tenant & IaaS admins
  • Log into the new tenant as a tenant and IaaS admin and start configuring the tenant

With vRA 7.x the procedure changes (and becomes more cumbersome IMO)

  • Log into the default tenant
  • Create a new tenant
  • Create a local user for the tenant
  • Add the local user as a tenant & IaaS admin
  • Log into the new tenant as the local user
  • Setup identity store directories
  • Log back into the default tenant
  • Edit the new tenant
  • Add domain users/groups as tenant & IaaS admins
  • Log into the new tenant as a tenant and IaaS admin and start configuring the tenant

So when it comes to trying to automate tenant creation its not as easy as it used to be for 6.x. For 6.x I’ve used cloud client (if you’re not familiar with CloudClient i’d recommend checking it out here https://developercenter.vmware.com/tool/cloudclient/4.1.0 )

The CloudClient commands required for 6.x are as follows:

  • Firstly login to CloudClient
vra login userpass --server vra-vip.domain.local --user administrator@vsphere.local --password Password123! --tenant vsphere.local
  • Next create the tenant
vra tenant add --name NewTenant --url newtenant

  • Next add the identity store for AD authentication
vra tenant identitystore add --tenantname NewTenant --name Domain.local --url ldap://domain.local --groupbasedn 'ou=vRA,DC=domain,DC=local' --domain domain.local --userdn 'cn=adbind_vra,OU=vRA,DC=domain,DC=local' --password Password123! --type AD --userbasedn 'ou=vRA,DC=domain,DC=local'

  • Next add Tenant administrators to the new tenant
vra tenant admin update --tenantname NewTenant --role TENANT_ADMIN --action ADD --users vRA_Tenant_Admins@domain.local

  • Next add IaaS Administrators to the new tenant
vra tenant admin update --tenantname NewTenant --role IAAS_ADMIN --action ADD --users vRA_IaaS_Admins@domain.local

 

So enter vRA 7.x. Using CloudClient the first 2 steps are the same as before

  • Firstly login to CloudClient
vra login userpass --server vra-vip.domain.local --user administrator@vsphere.local --password Password123! --tenant vsphere.local

  • Next create the tenant
vra tenant add --name NewTenant --url newtenant

  • Next we need to create a local user in the tenant. I couldn’t find a function in CloudClient to create the local user. I checked the developer API guide and I also tried the excellent community module PowervRA http://www.jonathanmedd.net/2016/03/introducing_powervra.html but no joy so i enlisted the help of my colleague Sean Leahy @leahy_s to query the REST API. We ran the add user operation manually and monitored the process in FireFox (Press F12 to get access to the browser console debugger.) Manually enter the user details and click Ok and you will see a POST operation in the console. See below

 

F12 Console

  • Click on the POST operation and inspect the REST information. In the headers tab you can see the Content-Type is application/json and in the params tab you can see the post data

F12 Params

  • Using the API guide we found the required REST method to get an authentication token from vRA that will allow us to POST data. In this example i’m using Advanced REST client in Chrome to retrieve the auth token from vRA. So the URL to POST to is https://vra-appliance-FQDN/identity/api/tokens and the credentials payload needs to be JSON formatted. See below

RESt Auth to vRA

  • The response back should contain a base64 encoded string that will be used as an authorization token to post the new user.
  • So again using Advanced REST client in chrome (or your preferred method) we need to do a POST operation to create the user. This time you need to use URL https://vra-appliance-FQDN/identity/api/tenants/NewTenant/principals. In the headers you need Accept set to Application/json and Authorization set to the base64 encoded token string we got in the previous step. IMPORTANT: You must prefix the token with Bearer or it will not work! See below

 

POST User

  • Here is the full JSON payload as you cant see it all in the screenshot
{"@type": "User",
 "firstName": "vRA",
 "lastName": "Admin",
 "emailAddress": "vraadmin@domain.local",
 "description": "vRA Admin",
 "locked": false,
 "disabled": false,
 "password": "Password123!",
"domain": "vsphere.local",
"userName":"vraadmin",
 "principalId": {"domain": "vsphere.local",
 "name": "vraadmin"}
 }
  • Ok deep breaths…if you’re still with me you can now proceed to adding the user to the tenant and IaaS administrator groups!
  • In the interest of trying out different tools I decided to try using PowervRA for this task. (I will revisit this using the REST API directly next week) I wont go into installing PowervRA. There are good instructions here https://github.com/jakkulabs/PowervRA
  • In PowervRA run the following commands
Add-vRAPrincipalToTenantRole -TenantId NewTenant -PrincipalId vraadmin@vsphere.local -RoleId CSP_TENANT_ADMIN

Add-vRAPrincipalToTenantRole -TenantId NewTenant -PrincipalId vraadmin@vsphere.local -RoleId COM_VMWARE_IAAS_IAAS_ADMINISTRATOR

Not sure why the complete difference in RoleId name format but thats the only way i could get it to work!

So now we have a tenant with a local user that is both tenant admin & IaaS admin but we still dont have an AD directory service to authenticate AD users. So for this we will again leverage the REST API. Using the same auth token as before, this time we need to hit https://vra-appliance-FQDN/identity/api/tenants/NewTenant/directories

POST Identity Store

  • Here is the full JSON payload as you cant see it all in the screenshot
{
@type: "IdentityStore",
domain: "domain.local",
name: "Domain.local",
alias: "Domain",
type: "AD",
userNameDn: "cn=adbind_vra,OU=EHC,DC=domain,DC=local",
password: "Password123!",
url: "ldap://domain.local:389",
groupBaseSearchDn: "ou=EHC,DC=domain,DC=local",
userBaseSearchDn: "ou=EHC,DC=domain,DC=local"
}

  • We can now go and add our domain users as Tenant admins and IaaS admins to allow domain users to log into the new tenant! So its a longer process than 6.x but its still doable (even if parts of it are undocumented in the API guide!). I will be working on scripting this for multiple tenants so hopefully keep an eye out for a follow up post as i fumble my way through using the vRealize Automation REST API! 🙂

Special thanks again to my colleague Sean Leahy for the REST pointers!