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jlui
Contributor
Contributor

Creating a friendly name for vRA web portal

I have a vRA deployment implemented at my company. Everything is running and appears to be set up all correctly.

The appliance, and therefore the URL, currently reflects my company's machine naming convention.

I would like to have a more friendly name presented to my users. Rather than https://servername.mycompany.net/vcac/org/abc, I would like it to show https://selfservice.mycompany.net.

I created a CNAME in DNS. When I browse to selfservice, it does point me at servername, but the URL ultimately comes back as https://servername.mycompany.net instead of https://selfservice.mycompany.net/ . Does something need to be configured on the appliance to have vRA respond as the alias, rather than the hostname?

Thank you.

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evil242
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The best I have found was to add a URL redirect in the /usr/lib/vcac/server/webapps/ROOT/index.jsp  file on the appliance. 

how-to:

    login via ssh root@main_web_vra_appliance

    cd /usr/lib/vcac/server/webapps/ROOT/

    # backup and create alt access for default homepage.

    cp index.jsp admin.jsp

    chmod 644 admin.jsp

    # use a known editor such as vi index.jsp

    # add the following line just after <body ..> tag:

       <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL='https://vra.your.org/vcac/org/abc'" />

     # save and quit

Now you get redirected from / to vcac/org/abc  That way if any of your customers use just the name, they won't get the  "VMware vRealize Automation Appliance" home page but will get your default tenant home page. 

And if you want to get back to the default home page, use the URL https://vra.your.org/admin.jsp to get to your backed up page.

No restart of services required.

Good luck

Damion

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pedjono
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi jlui​ - I think your looking for something like this:
Set the vRealize Automation Login URL to a Custom Name

Cheers

Jono

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evil242
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes, but if you go to just the root aka https://vra_cname.company.com/, you are going to get the appliance landing page and not the sub tenant URL people are attempting to get to for the selfservice page.

Damion Terrell  .   +  (He/Him)  +  . *  .  +   @   + .    *  .    +      .                    
Core IT Service Specialist * . + * . + . + . + * +
UNM – IT Platforms – VIS + . . . . . . . . .
. + . + * . + * .
* . . + . . . . + . + * + .
“You learn the job of the person above you, * + . + * @
and you teach your job to the person below you..” . * +
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atusmenezes
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi jlui

As mentioned by pedjono​, here the procedure to use a customized name to vRA:

Procedure

  1. Before installing, prepare a certificate that includes the CNAME that you want, as well as vRealize Automation appliance and load balancer names.
  2. Install vRealize Automation, entering the appliance or load balancer name as usual. During installation, import the customized certificate.
  3. After installing, in DNS, create a CNAME alias of Common Name, and point it to the appliance or load balancer VIP address.
  4. Log in to the vRealize Automation appliance administrator interface as root.
      https://vrealize-automation-appliance-FQDN:5480
  5. Under vRA > Host Settings, change the Host Name to the CNAME that you chose.

Ref.: Set the vRealize Automation Login URL to a Custom Name

Now, you always have to put the https://vrealize-automation-appliance-FQDN/vcac or https://vrealize-automation-appliance-FQDN/vcac/org/tenantname to go to login page. As far as I know, you should create some rule in your load balance solution, or something like that to redirect all requests to https://vrealize-automation-appliance-FQDN to https://vrealize-automation-appliance-FQDN/vcac or create a customized self-service portal to do that according with the user that will login in the system (I have some customer that did it).

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pedjono
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

evil242

Yes you are correct, without some form of redirect you will hit the appliance page, but to make it not show the servername and show the webpagename you need to follow that process..

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nsajepi
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

jlui​, I wonder if what you are getting is coming from IdP Hostname which is in Identity Providers section.

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atusmenezes
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Makes sense. If he is using a distributed environment, he needs to put the VIP in IDP Hostname, and it would be a friendly name.

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