You can federate vCenter Server to Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) as an external identity provider by using the vCenter Server Identity Providers service.

Prerequisites

Note: This process of configuring an AD FS identity provider requires that you have administrative access to both your vCenter Server and your AD FS server. During the configuration process, you enter information first in your vCenter Server, then in your AD FS server, then in your vCenter Server.

Active Directory Federation Services requirements:

  • AD FS for Windows Server 2016 or later must already be deployed.
  • AD FS must be connected to Active Directory.
  • An Application Group for vCenter Server must be created in AD FS as part of the configuration process. See the VMware knowledge base article at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/78029.
  • An AD FS server certificate (or a CA or intermediate certificate that signed the AD FS server certificate) that you add to the Trusted Root Certificates Store.
  • You have created a vCenter Server administrators group in AD FS that contains the users you want to grant vCenter Server administrator privileges to.

For more information about configuring AD FS, see the Microsoft documentation.

vCenter Server and other requirements:

  • vSphere 7.0 or later
  • vCenter Server must be able to connect to the AD FS discovery endpoint, and the authorization, token, logout, JWKS, and any other endpoints advertised in the discovery endpoint metadata.
  • You need the VcIdentityProviders.Manage privilege to create, update, or delete a vCenter Server Identity Provider that is required for federated authentication. To limit a user to view the Identity Provider configuration information only, assign the VcIdentityProviders.Read privilege.

Procedure

  1. Authenticate to the vSphere Automation API endpoint and establish a session.
  2. Add your AD FS root CA certificate to the Trusted Root Certificates Store.

    See Managing Certificates.

  3. Fill in the oidc data structure by using the Application Group configuration from AD FS.

    Parameter

    Description

    discovery_endpoint

    The OpenID address of the AD FS server.

    client_id

    The client identifier of the AD FS Application Group.

    client_secret

    The secret shared between the client and the provider.

    claim_map

    This parameter is required but not applicable to AD FS. Use an empty array [].
  4. Fill in the active_directory_over_ldap data structure.

    Parameter

    Description

    user_name

    The user name of a user in the domain who has a minimum of read-only access to the base Distinguished Name (DN) for users and groups.

    password

    The password of a user in the domain who has a minimum of read-only access to the base DN for users and groups.

    users_base_dn

    The base DN for users in the Active Directory environment connected to AD FS that you want to be able to federate with vCenter Server.

    groups_base_dn

    The base DN for groups in the Active Directory environment connected to AD FS that you want to be able to federate with vCenter Server.

    server_endpoints

    Active Directory server endpoints. At least one Active Directory server endpoint must be set.

    Use the format: ldap://<hostname>:<port> or ldaps://<hostname>:<port>. The port is typically 389 for LDAP connections and 636 for LDAPS connections. For Active Directory multi-domain controller deployments, the port is typically 3268 for LDAP and 3269 for LDAPS.

    cert_chain

    The SSL certificate chain in base64 encoding. You can skip this parameter only if all the Active Directory server endpoints use the LDAP (and not the LDAPS) protocol.
  5. Add the identity provider by using the Identity Providers service.
    1. Fill in the request body parameters.

      Parameter

      Description

      config_tag

      The configuration type of the identity provider. The possible values are Oauth2 and Oidc. For AD FS federation, use Oidc.

      name

      The user-friendly name for the identity provider. For proper configuration, you must use the exact string Microsoft ADFS.

      upn_claim

      The name of the claim in the AD FS JWT token that contains the user principal name (UPN) of the user that is logging in. You must use the same value that you used when you set up the AD FS Application Group. The procedure from the article in the prerequisites uses upn. If unset, the default value is acct.

      groups_claim

      The name of the claim in the AD FS JWT token that contains the group membership of the user that is logging in. You must use the same value that you used when you set up the AD FS Application Group. The procedure from the article in the prerequisites uses group. If unset, the groups for the subject consist of the groups in group_names and group_ids claims.

      is_default

      Set to true. Specifies whether the provider is the default provider. Setting is_default to true makes all other providers non-default.

      If unset:
      • In case it is the first created provider, it is set as the default provider.
      • In case it is not the first created provider, it is not set as the default provider.

      oidc

      Data structure for oidc.

      idm_protocol

      The communication protocol used to connect to AD FS to search for users and groups when assigning permissions in vCenter Server. You must use LDAP. If unset, no communication protocol is configured for the users and groups search.

      active_directory_over_ldap

      Data structure for active_directory_over_ldap.
    2. Invoke the operation. 
      POST https://<vcenter_server_ip_address_or_fqdn>/api/vcenter/identity/providers

      The operation returns the ID of the provider you created.

  6. Configure vCenter Server permissions for Active Directory users or groups in your AD FS environment.

    You can do this in two ways:

    • Add a user from your AD FS environment to a group in vCenter Server.

    • Configure Global Permissions for an AD FS user.

    Note:

    In vSphere 8.0 and later, you cannot configure permissions through the vSphere Automation API. Instead, you use either the vSphere Client or the vSphere Web Services API. For more information, see the vSphere Authentication Guide or the vSphere Web Services SDK Programming Guide.

  7. (Optional) Copy the two redirect URIs from the Identity Provider Configuration page in the vSphere Client and add them to your AD FS Application Group.
    Note:

    You must do this step to enable logging in to vCenter Server through AD FS by using the vSphere Client.

Results

You configured vCenter Server to use AD FS as the identity provider.