How to Store Credentials in script for vCenter and vCenter MOB

[nicholas1982]

Hi Guys,

I've modified a great script written by William Lam and works perfectly however the script requires me to specify the credentials either in the script or pass as a param in plain text.

I usually use $Cred = Get-Credentials at the beginning of my scripts to authenticate against vCenter but this script requires to also authenticate against the MOB and I just can't figure out how to store the credentials for both.

vghetto-scripts/enable-disable-vsphere-api-method.ps1 at master · lamw/vghetto-scripts · GitHub

[LucD · Accepted solution]

You can have multiple Get-Credential cmdlets in a script.

You could do

$credVC = Get-Credential -Message "Enter vCenter credentials"

$credMOB = Get-Credential -Message "Enter MOB credentials"

[nicholas1982]

Thanks Luc,

I thought that might work but correct me if I'm wrong I would have to enter the same credentials twice. Would there be anyway I could script to only prompt once since they are the same credentials?

[LucD]

If they are the same, you only have to do the Get-Credential once.

You can use the object ($credential) coming out of the cmdlet for both.

$credential = Get-Credential -Message "Enter vCenter/MOB credentials"

[nicholas1982]

would I have to place it at the very top above the functions?

[nicholas1982]

Hi Luc,

Would I have to modify everywhere it tries to connect using -user and -pass to $credentials for example in this function

Function Disable-vSphereMethod {

    param(

    [Parameter(

        Position=0,

        Mandatory=$true,

        ValueFromPipeline=$true,

        ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)

    ]

    [String]$vmmoref,

    [string]$vc_server,

    [String]$vc_username,

    [String]$vc_password,

    [String]$disable_method

    )

    $secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $vc_password -AsPlainText -Force

    $credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($vc_username, $secpasswd)

    # vSphere MOB URL to private disableMethods

    $mob_url = "https://$vc_server/mob/?moid=AuthorizationManager&method=disableMethods"

# Ingore SSL Warnings

add-type -ErrorAction Ignore -TypeDefinition  @"

        using System.Net;

        using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;

        public class TrustAllCertsPolicy : ICertificatePolicy {

            public bool CheckValidationResult(

                ServicePoint srvPoint, X509Certificate certificate,

                WebRequest request, int certificateProblem) {

                return true;

            }

        }

"@

[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::CertificatePolicy = New-Object TrustAllCertsPolicy

    # Initial login to vSphere MOB using GET and store session using $vmware variable

    $results = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $mob_url -SessionVariable vmware -Credential $credential -Method GET

    # Extract hidden vmware-session-nonce which must be included in future requests to prevent CSRF error

    # Credit to https://blog.netnerds.net/2013/07/use-powershell-to-keep-a-cookiejar-and-post-to-a-web-form/ for parsing vmware-session-nonce via Powershell

    if($results.StatusCode -eq 200) {

        $null = $results -match 'name="vmware-session-nonce" type="hidden" value="?([^\s^"]+)"'

        $sessionnonce = $matches[1]

    } else {

        Write-host "Failed to login to vSphere MOB"

        exit 1

    }

    # The POST data payload must include the vmware-session-nonce variable + URL-encoded

    $body = @"

vmware-session-nonce=$sessionnonce&entity=%3Centity+type%3D%22ManagedEntity%22+xsi%3Atype%3D%22ManagedObjectReference%22%3E$vmmoref%3C%2Fentity%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A&method=%3CDisabledMethodRequest%3E%0D%0A+++%3Cmethod%3E$disable_method%3C%2Fmethod%3E%0D%0A%3C%2FDisabledMethodRequest%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A&sourceId=self

"@

    # Second request using a POST and specifying our session from initial login + body request

    $results = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $mob_url -WebSession $vmware -Method POST -Body $body

}

[LucD]

You would need to replace these lines

$vc_username = "administrator@vghetto.local"

$vc_password = "VMware1!"

with these lines

$credential = Get-Credential -Message "Enter vCenter/MOB credentials"

$vc_username = $credential.GetNetworkCredential().UserName

$vc_password = $credential.GetNetworkCredential().password

[nicholas1982]

Hey Luc,

Your the best! works perfectly thanks again.

Cheers