Starting with App Launchpad 2.0.0.1, you can install and configure App Launchpad with an instance of VMware Cloud Director service.
You deploy App Launchpad by installing an RPM and DEB package on a dedicated Linux virtual machine. Then use the alp command-line utility to configure App Launchpad services to work with a VMware Cloud Director instance.
When you deploy the RPM or DEB, App Launchpad creates a user group named vmware-alp and a user named vmware-alp. Only users that belong to the vmware-alp user group and the root user can operate the App Launchpad command-line utility. You can add users to the user group. The vmware-alp is reserved for the management and deployer service of App Launchpad.
If you want to use the alp scripts, the diagnose, and the support bundle tools as a non-root user, use the useradd -g vmware-alp <sample> command to add more users to the vmware-alp user group.
During the configuration of App Launchpad with VMware Cloud Director, the alp connect script creates a dedicated service account using the name that you specify in the arguments of the script and pull the required AMQP broker configuration.
When you configure App Launchpad with VMware Cloud Director, you can optionally select one of the existing system user accounts to become the App Launchpad service account. If you do not select an existing user account, App Launchpad creates a VMware Cloud Director user account. This user account becomes the service account. A best practice is to name a dedicated service account user.
Later, when you go through the initial configuration, App Launchpad creates a VMware Cloud Director organization named AppLaunchpad that is reserved for the App Launchpad services. Do not delete the AppLaunchpad organization.
Use this organization to host your application catalogs. You cannot edit the Bitnami VM applications in your catalogs that are subscribed to the VMware Marketplace. You can customize your Bitnami container application catalogs and the in-house application catalogs.
You can change the name of the service account and the VMware Cloud Director organization by using the App Launchpad command-line interface. Editing the service account and organization names does not impact existing application deployments.
The applications that tenant users deploy belong to the AppLaunchpad organization in VMware Cloud Director. Whenever a tenant user performs an operation within App Launchpad, for example deploy an application or search for an application, the service account is used to authorize the operation. For more information about the App-Launchpad-Service role, see Access Control and User Roles.
