Before connecting EmpowerID to an external directory, please review the Getting Started with Directory Systems topic. The topic walks you through the prerequisites you need to complete before connecting to an external directory for the first time. These prerequisites include: Configuring the appropriate server roles for your EmpowerID servers Reviewing the Join and Provision Rules for your environment Reviewing the Join and Provision Filters for your environment If you have already connected EmpowerID to another external directory, you can skip the above prerequisites. EmpowerID provides connectors for a wide range of user directories and resource systems. As an administrator, you can use these connectors to quickly connect EmpowerID to your organization's identity-aware systems and applications. When you do so, you create an account store for that application in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse and use that account store to configure how you want EmpowerID to manage the identity information in that system.
The ESXi connector allows organizations to bring the user, permissions, and roles data in their stand-alone VMware ESXi systems to EmpowerID, where it can be managed and synchronized with data in any connected back-end user directories.
ESXi roles and permissions are treated as EmpowerID groups and memberships.
Once connected, you can manage this data from EmpowerID in the following ways:
Create new users
Edit user attributes
Delete users
Create new roles and permissions
Manage roles and permissions membership
Delete roles and permissions
To create a VMWare EXSi account store in EmpowerID
On the navbar, expand Admin > Applications and Directories and then click Account Stores and Systems.
On the Account Stores page, click Create Account Store.
Under System Types, search for ESXI.
Click ESXI to select the type and then click Submit.
On the ESXi Settings page, provide the following values:
Server — The IP address or FQDN of your ESXi Server
Name — A name for the account store
User Name — Your ESXi administrator or root user name
Password — Your ESXi administrator or root user password
Is Remote (Requires Cloud Gateway) — This setting appears for account stores with local directories, such as Active Directory, LDAP, SAP, VMWare EXSI, etc. When enabled, this tells EmpowerID to use the Cloud Gateway Connection for that account store. The Cloud Gateway Connection must be installed on an on-premise machine. For installation information, please see Installing the EmpowerID Cloud Gateway Client.
When ready, click Submit.
If you selected Is Remote (Requires Cloud Gateway), search for and select one or more cloud gateway servers and then click Submit. You will not see this screen if you did not select Is Remote (Requires Cloud Gateway).
EmpowerID creates the account store and the associated resource system. The next step is to configure the account store settings.
To configure account store settings
From the Account Stores tab of the Account Stores and Systems page, search for the account store you just created and click the Account Store link for it.
On the Account Store Details page, click the pencil icon to put the account store in edit mode.
This opens the edit page for the account store. This page allows you to specify the account proxy used to connect EmpowerID to your Windows server as well as how you want EmpowerID to handle the user information it discovers there during inventory. Settings that can be edited are described in the table below the image.
Account Store Settings
Setting
Description
General Settings
IT Environment Type
Allows you to specify the type of environment in which you are creating the account store.
Option 1 Specify an Account Proxy
Allows you to change the credentials for the account that EmpowerID uses to connect to and manage the account store.
Option 2 Select a Vaulted Credential as Account Proxy
Allows you to use a credential that you have vaulted in EmpowerID as the account that EmpowerID uses to connect to and manage the account store.
Use Secure LDAPS Binding
Specifies whether you are using Secure LDAP to encrypt LDAP data when establishing a directory bind.
Inventoried Directory Server
Allows you to select a connected server as the directory server for the account store.
Is Remote (Cloud Gateway Connection Required)
This setting appears for account stores with local directories, such as Active Directory, LDAP, SAP, etc. When enabled, this tells EmpowerID to use the Cloud Gateway Connection for that account store. The Cloud Gateway Connection must be installed on an on-premise machine. For installation information, please see Installing the EmpowerID Cloud Gateway Client.
Authentication and Password Settings
Use for Authentication
Specifies whether user credentials in the external system can be used to authenticate to EmpowerID.
Allow Search for User Name in Authentication
This setting works in conjunction with pass-through authentication to allow users to log in without specifying a domain name. When this is enabled, EmpowerID first checks to see if the user name entered exists within its Identity Warehouse and if so attempts to authenticate as that user. If a matching logon name exists but the login fails, EmpowerID then searches through all Accounts Stores where simple username search is enabled to find the correct user name and password combination.
Allow Password Sync
Enables or disables the synchronization of password changes to user accounts in the domain based on password changes for the owning person object or another account owned by the person. This setting does not prevent password changes by users running the reset user account password workflows.
Queue Password Changes
Specifies whether EmpowerID sends password changes to the Account Password Reset Inbox for batch processing.
Password Manager Policy for Accounts without Person
Specifies the Password Manager Policy to be used for user accounts not joined to an EmpowerID Person.
Provisioning Settings
Allow Person Provisioning (Joiner Source)
Specifies whether EmpowerID Persons can be provisioned from user accounts in the account store.
Allow Attribute Flow
Specifies whether attribute changes should flow between EmpowerID and the account store.
Allow Provisioning (By RET)
Allows or disallows the Resource Entitlement (RET) Inbox process to auto-provision accounts for this domain for users who receive RET policy-assigned user accounts, but have not yet had them provisioned.
Allow Deprovisioning (By RET)
Allows or disallows the Resource Entitlement Inbox process to auto de-provision accounts for this domain for users who still have RET policy-assigned user accounts, but no longer receive a policy that grants them a user account in the domain. De-provisioning only occurs if the de-provision action on the Resource Entitlement policy is set to De-Provision.
Max Accounts per Person
This specifies the maximum number of user accounts from this domain that an EmpowerID Person can have linked to them. This prevents the possibility of a runaway error caused by a wrongly configured Join rule. It is recommended that this value be set to 1 unless users will have more than 1 account and you wish them to be joined to the same person.
Allow Account Creation on Membership Request
Specifies whether EmpowerID creates user accounts in the account store when an EmpowerID Person without one requests membership within a group belonging to the account store.
Recertify All Group Changes as Detected
Specifies whether detected group changes should trigger recertification.
Default Person Business Role
Specifies the default EmpowerID Business Role to be assigned to each EmpowerID Person provisioned from the user accounts in the account store.
Default Person Location (leave blank to use account container)
Specifies the default EmpowerID Location to be assigned to each EmpowerID Person provisioned from the user accounts in the account store.
Directory Clean Up Enabled
Directory Clean Up Enabled
Specifies whether the SubmitAccountTermination permanent workflow should claim the account store for processing account terminations. When enabled, accounts in the account store that meet the qualifications to be marked for deletion are moved into a special OU within the external directory, disabled and finally deleted after going through an automated approval process. This process involves setting a number of system settings in EmpowerID and requires multiple approvals by designated personnel before an account is finally removed from the account store.
Report Only Mode (No Changes)
When enabled, a report of what the Directory Clean Up process would do is written to the log. The process itself is ignored and all accounts are set to Termination Pending,
OU to Move Stale Accounts
Specifies the external directory in which to move accounts marked for termination.
Special Use Settings
RBAC Assign Group Members On First Inventory
Converts each user account in an group to a Access Level assignment for the EmpowerID Person who owns the user account. Enabling this function is not recommended in most cases as it removes the ability to manage groups in the account store. A consequence of this is that if a user account is removed from a native system, EmpowerID puts the account back in the group.
Automatically Join Account to a Person on Inventory (Skip Account Inbox)
Specifies whether EmpowerID should attempt to join user accounts in the account store to an existing EmpowerID Person during the inventory process. When enabled, the Account Inbox is bypassed.
Automatically Create a Person on Inventory (Skip Account Inbox)
Specifies whether EmpowerID should create new EmpowerID Persons from the user accounts discovered in the account store during the inventory process. When enabled, the Account Inbox is bypassed.
Show in Location Tree
Specifies whether the account store shows in the Location Tree within the EmpowerID UI.
Queue Password Changes on Failure
Specifies whether EmpowerID should send password changes to the Account Password Reset Inbox only when the change fails.
Inventory Settings
Inventory Schedule Interval
Specifies the time span that occurs before EmpowerID performs a complete inventory of the account store. The default value is 10 minutes.
Inventory Enabled
Allows EmpowerID to inventory the user information in the account store.
Membership Settings
Membership Schedule Interval
Specifies the time span that occurs before EmpowerID runs the Group Membership Reconciliation job. The default value is 10 minutes.
Enable Group Membership Reconciliation
Allows EmpowerID to manage the membership of the account store’s groups, adding and removing user to and from groups based on policy-based assignment rules.
Edit the account store as needed and then click Save to save your changes.
Now that everything is configured, you can enable the Account Inbox Permanent Workflow and monitor inventory. Be sure inventory is enabled on the account store settings page.
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On the navbar, expand System Logs > Policy Inbox Logs and click Account Inbox. Dashboard — This tab provides a quick summary of account inbox activity. Not Processed — This tab displays a grid view of all inventoried user accounts not yet used to provision a new EmpowerID Person or joined to an existing Person. Any accounts that fail to meet the Join and Provision rules are displayed here as well. Failed — This tab displays a grid view of any account joining or provisioning failures. Ignored — This tab displays a grid view of all accounts ignored by the account inbox. Accounts are ignored if they do not qualify as user accounts. Joined — This tab displays a grid view of all accounts joined to an EmpowerID Person. Joins occur based on the Join rules applied to the account store. Processed — This tab displays a grid view of all accounts that have been used to either provision a new EmpowerID Person or joined to an existing EmpowerID Person. Provisioned — This tab displays a grid view of all accounts that have been used to provision an EmpowerID Person. Provisioning occurs based on the Provision rules applied to the account store. Orphans — This tab displays a grid view of all user accounts without an EmpowerID Person. All — This tab displays a grid view of all user accounts and the status of those accounts in relation to the Account Inbox.Monitor inventory
The Account Inbox page appears. This page provides tabbed views of all information related to processing new user accounts discovered in a connected account store during inventory. An explanation of these tabs follows.
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