VMWare ESXi Connector

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.

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

Step 1 – Create a VMWare EXSi account store

1. On the navbar, expand Admin > Applications and Directories and then select Account Stores and Systems.

2. On the Account Stores page, select the Actions tab and then click Create Account Store.
   

   

3. Under System Types, search for ESXI.

4. Click the ESXI record to select the type and then click Submit.
   

   

5. 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.
     

6. When ready, click Submit.

7. 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.

Step 2 – Configure account store settings

1. 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.
   

   

2. 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 configure 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.
   Account Store Type	Allows you to specify the type for 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.
   Inventoried Directory Server	Allows you to select a connected server as the directory server for the account store.
   Is Visible in ITShop	Specifies whether the account store can be used to filter IT Shop resources to show resources, such as groups, contained in the account store.
   Authentication and Password Settings
   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 the account store and EmpowerID.
   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.
   Business Role Settings
   Allow Business Role and Location Re-Evaluation	Specifies whether Business Role and Location re-evaluation should occur for the account store
   Business Role and Location Re-Evaluation Order	Specifies the order of the account store for re-evaluating Business Roles and locations
   Inventory Auto Provision OUs as IT System Locations	Specifies whether EmpowerID should automatically provision external OUs as IT System locations
   Inventory Auto Provision External Roles as Business Roles	Specifies whether EmpowerID should provision Business roles for external account store roles
   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.
   Group Settings
   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 External Group Changes as Detected	Specifies whether detected group changes should trigger recertification.
   SetGroup of Groups to Monitor for Real-Time Recertification	Specifies the SetGroup to be used for monitoring group membership changes.
   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 location 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,
   Special Use Settings
   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.
   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 Enabled	Allows EmpowerID to inventory the user information in the account store.
   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.
   Membership Settings
   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.
   Membership Schedule Interval	Specifies the time span that occurs before EmpowerID runs the Group Membership Reconciliation job. The default value is 10 minutes.

3. 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.

Step 3 – Enable the Account Inbox Permanent Workflow

1. On the navbar, expand Infrastructure Admin > EmpowerID Server and Settings and select Permanent Workflows.

2. On the Permanent Workflows page, click the Display Name link for Account Inbox.
   

   

   
   

3. On the Permanent Workflow Details page that appears, click the pencil icon to put the workflow in edit mode.
   

   

4. Check Enabled.
   

   

   
   

5. Click Save to save your changes.

Step 4 – Monitor Inventory

1. On the navbar, expand Identity Lifecycle and select Account Inbox.
   
   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.
   

   

   • All — This tab displays a grid view of all user accounts and the status of those accounts in relation to the Account Inbox.

   • Dashboard — This tab provides a quick summary of account inbox activity.

   • Orphans — This tab displays a grid view of all user accounts without an EmpowerID Person.