Enabling shell access for Active Directory users via SSH to vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)

William Lam had a question the other day on whether it was possible to enable shell access for Active Directory users when logging into the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) via SSH?

As always William created a very useful article we wanted to share. Please find his post here or scroll down.

Here is William’s solution: The answer is yes and though this is documented here, it is not very clear whether this is only applicable to SSO-based users only. In any case, the process to enable this is pretty straight forward and simply requires two steps which I have outlined below.

Step 0 – Ensure that your VCSA and/or PSC is joined to Active Directory before proceeding to the next step. If not, take a look at the documentation here for more details.

Step 1 – Login to vSphere Web Client and under Administration->System Configuration->Nodes->Manage->Settings->Access, go ahead and enable boh SSH and bash shell options. The first setting turns on SSH to the VCSA and the second setting allows users (local, SSO and AD) to access the shell on the VCSA.

Read the entire article here, Enabling shell access for Active Directory users via SSH to vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)

Via the fine folks at opvizor.