VMware vSphere

vCenter API Access Instructions

Epiphany requires a vSphere user created and assigned appropriate permissions to retrieve the appropriate information.

We’ll need two permissions for collection to work as designed:

1. ReadOnly on the vSphere infrastructure

2. A dedicated “Modify Permissions” on a single object to allow us to enumerate users and groups

Note: Due to changes in how vSphere handles the ability to enumerate users and groups, this account must be granted “Modify Permissions” for at least ONE object within as noted in the VMWare documentation for the RetrieveUsersandGroups API function. The object where these permissions are assigned isn’t required to be real and can be created just for this purpose if desired. The Virtual Machine hosting the on-prem collector can also be used and poses no impact to the environment.

As noted in the VMWare documentation, holding this permission on ANY object allows for enumeration, and it does not have to be applied across all objects.

“You must hold the Authorization.ModifyPermissions privilege to invoke this method. If you hold the privilege on any ManagedEntity, you will have access to user and group information for the server.”

To enable this access, we’ll need 4 things:

1. A user account dedicated to the Epiphany Collector

2. A role with appropriate Modify Permissions permission assigned

3. Read-Only permissions to the vCenter hierarchy

4. An object where our user will be assigned the role

From there we can enable the data source within the Epiphany Console using the created user account.