I'm trying to give entilements to a user in AD to access a desktop using the vdmadmin.exe command line interface. I'm using VMware View Administrator 3.1.0 build-167577.
Here is an example of what I'm executing and seeing:
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\bin>vdmadmin.exe -L -d Pool1 -m DesktopVM -u example.com\phife757
Sucessfully assigned machine to specified user
When I look at the web admin interface after the command above I do not see that user as entitled to use the desktop. Login using the View Client also fails.
I got the command from this article: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100752
So i guess my questions are, am I using this command correctly? If not, how could I accomplish this using the command line?
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\bin>vdmadmin.exe -L -d Pool1 -m DesktopVM -u example.com\phife757
Sucessfully assigned machine to specified user
So i guess my questions are, am I using this command correctly? If not, how could I accomplish this using the command line?
There's no command line option to vdmadmin to entitle users to a desktop, only to (un)assign a specific VM to them within a persistent pool. You'll need to use the admin UI to set up desktop entitlements. davesherman's recommendation to manage the entitlements for large desktop pools by using AD groups is a good way to go, you can then modify entitlements by scripting changes to the group.
I think you have to run vdmadmin -F to update the Foreign Security Principals after assigning the desktop to the user.
-Dave
I gave that a try:
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\bin>vdmadmin.exe -L -d Pool1 -m DesktopVM -u example.com\phife757
Sucessfully assigned machine to specified user
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\bin>vdmadmin.exe -F
.........
User FSPs updated successfully.
I'm still not seeing the entilements and I'm not able to connect using the View Client
There may be another vdmadmin command that I'm not aware of, but I believe you still have to do the entitlement manually the View Admin web interface. Once you do that, you'll see the user is assigned to the desktop and they should be able to connect.
How would someone batch provision users to View? It would seem cumbersome to manually add entitlements with a large user base.
We use AD groups to entitle users to pools (you can use adsi scripts to create/populate large AD groups). Once you have the users entitled to the pool, I believe you can use the vmadmin commands to assign specific desktops to users. I apologize, I overlooked this in your first posting, I assumed the users were already entitled to the pool.
-Dave
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\bin>vdmadmin.exe -L -d Pool1 -m DesktopVM -u example.com\phife757
Sucessfully assigned machine to specified user
So i guess my questions are, am I using this command correctly? If not, how could I accomplish this using the command line?
There's no command line option to vdmadmin to entitle users to a desktop, only to (un)assign a specific VM to them within a persistent pool. You'll need to use the admin UI to set up desktop entitlements. davesherman's recommendation to manage the entitlements for large desktop pools by using AD groups is a good way to go, you can then modify entitlements by scripting changes to the group.