How to Add host to VirtualCenter with account other than root？

[YunghanLu]

Dear All:

Does anyone of you have ever try to add ESX host to VirtualCenter without using root account?

I have try to change my new account's gid and uid, but I still cannot use the new account to add ESX hosts to VirtualCenter .

[O_o]

You need to create a new user with the "Administrator" roll assigned to it ... This should provide the correct permissions

[nirubagur]

try this command from ssh login

usermod -u 0 -o <name of account>

This will provide root level access to the new user account

[JonRoderick]

Hmm, I'd like to extend the question and ask what permissions are required to add a host to a cluster without requiring root privileges....? Anyone know?

Jon

[Erik_Zandboer]

Hi,

Somewhere from way back, it used to be "wheel" I think...?? btw, the root account is only used to perform the initial connection... Virtualcenter creates his own user/password combination after that, and will NOT use the root account anymore... It is therefore safe to change the root password after the initial connetion... VirtualCenter will still be able to do its trick.

[atbnet]

You have to add the ESX host to vCenter with root permissions initially. Once its logs in it creates a user purely for vCenter to use (vpxa I think - You will see it be created if you check the user list before and after). This is a secure password that is changed frequently by VC (not sure on the interval).

vCenter does not use the root user for any other actions after this.

Andy, VMware Certified Professional (VCP),

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[atbnet]

wheel that you mention is just the default group used for sudoers. To allow non-privileged users to run certain commands as root (super user). More on it here

Andy, VMware Certified Professional (VCP),

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[admin]

The account you use to add a host to VC only needs to have an admin role on the root folder in the host's inventory. It doesn't need to have any special file system privileges in the service console. In fact, the "vpxuser" account that is created by VC to manage the host has just these privileges.