How to Create User and Role with vSphere Web Client

Create a user account in vSphere

VMware vSphere is VMware’s virtualization platform and is a hypervisor and management suite marketed to IT infrastructure providers. When you log into vSphere Web Client, users account listed on the Users tab are internal to vCenter Single Sign-On. You can view information about a user includes the user name, status, role and its privileges.

Today I will introduce how to create a new user and how to custom a vCenter Server role step by step. To add user to vCenter, you could perform the following using the vSphere Web Client or ESXi Shell.

How to add a user to vCenter with vSphere Web Client

It's the fast and easy way to add a user account to vCenter. You should login to your vSphere Web Client ESXi Host first(e.g : https:// your host ip).

1. Click on Host >> Manage, click on Security & Users. Then select User >> Add User.

2. In the new popup window, enter the name and password. Confirm the Password. Finally, click Add.

Tips: You cannot change the user name after you create a user. The password must meet the password policy requirements for the system.

How to vCenter create a new user using ESXi Shell

If you log in to the appliance shell as a super administrator, you can manage the local user accounts in vCenter Server by running commands in the appliance shell.

1. Switch to ESXi local shell or ssh to ESXi host. Enter the following command, and this will list existing accounts in ESXi host.

2. Run below command to add the local user account with required user details.

This will add a user called as testuser1 with password mentioned. Ensure that Password entered is as per ESXi Password policy.

3. Verify that user is added to local system in the vCenter Server.

Create a vCenter Server custom role

Although I added users to vCenter in above steps, none of them are associated with any role as now. While creating users in vSphere, there is no option to associate user with a role group as you can see in above screenshot while adding a user.

So after you have created the user account with vSphere Web Client, you must create a role and map it to the service account you just created. The procedure is the same as that for creating local accounts.

1. Select Roles >> Add role to create a custom role.

2. Assign Role Name and select required privileges from the list and click Add.

3. After adding permission to an object, you can assign a role to the user or group through permissions page under Action menu.

4. Once on Manage permissions page, click Add user to add the user. This is required as the local user we created are not in the list by default as they were not associated with any role while creating them.

5. Select the newly created user account from the drop down menu, then select the required Role, Finally click on Add User.

These are the specific steps to add a user to vCenter with vSphere Web Client. However, for better vSphere environment, VM security is important. If you want to back up your VMs on a regular basis to avoid data-loss and restore the VMs to a usable state quickly, you can make a dedicated vSphere backup solution.

How to easily backup multiple virtual machines under vCenter

vCenter can manage a large number of virtual machines, but to offer complete VM protection, many IT staff prefer a specialized backup software such as AOMEI Cyber Backup, a reliable VM backup software, which is professional and reliable for VMware and Hyper-V virtual machine backup.

It offers you the following benefits.

✦ Batch VM Backup: batch backup large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server, or multiple VMs on a standalone ESXi host.
✦ Centralized VM Backup: independent image-level VM backups can be used to create new VMs.
✦ Automated Execution: create backup schedules to automate virtual machine protection.
✦ Restore Entire VM: restore immediately available VMs from any selected restore points.

AOMEI Cyber Backup supports VMware ESXi 6.0 and later versions. Next, I will demonstrate how to perform backup of multiple VMware ESXi VMs. You can click the following button to download the freeware.

3 simple steps to backup multiple vCenter VMs

1. Bind Devices: Access to AOMEI Cyber Backup web client, navigate to Source Device >> VMware >> + Add VMware vCenter or Standalone ESXi host. And then click … >> Bind Device.

2. Create Backup Task: Navigate to Backup Task >> + Create New Task, and then select VMware ESXi Backup as the Device Type. You can add virtual machines in bulk, which save times.

▶ Device: navigate to the vCenter Server and select a datacenter, it will show all the VMs in the right pane. With one click, you can easily back up multiple virtual machines.

▶ Target: selecting to back up to a local path, or to a network path. Used paths will be saved in Favorite Storage for handy selection.

▶ Schedule: performing full, differential or incremental backup, and automate execution daily, weekly or monthly according to the frequency you specified.

▶ Backup cleanup: Configure a retention policy to auto delete old backup files and save storage space.

▶ Start Backup: You can click Start Backup and select to Add the schedule and start backup now, or Add the schedule only.

3. Restore: Click Restore to recover a virtual machine from backup, saving the trouble of re-configuring the new VM.

Once the backup task is created, it will be executed automatically according to your schedule. If you want to restore a virtual machine, you can click Restore and choose to restore entire VM to an available state from any historical restore point. In addition to restoring a VM to its original location, you can also choose Restore to new location, which will create a new, identical VM directly from your backup to the target location.

Summary

With vSphere, creating a local user account in ESXi host is fairly simple process. This article covers the detailed steps to add user to vCenter. The process is identical in ESXi 6.x as well as ESXi 7.x version. You can use ESXi host Command line or GUI to create new user in vCenter. Besides, VM protection is necessary to create a better vSphere environment.