RetrieveUserGroups Method

UserDirectory allows you to obtain information about users and groups using the RetrieveUserGroups method. The method can obtain a list of all user accounts from the host, and can search for specific users or groups based on specific criteria to filter the results. You can search by user name, by group name, for an exact match, or for a partial string (substring).

• ESXi does not support local user groups, so this method will not return group information for a host. This method will return information about Active Directory groups.
• For ESXi systems, search returns all users from the passwd file. If this file contains Network Information System (NIS) or NIS+ users, RetrieveUserGroups returns these accounts as well.
• For vCenter Server, search is limited to the specified Windows domain. If the domain is omitted, the search is performed on local users and groups.
  Important: Do not configure an ESXi system to use NIS or NIS+, unless it is acceptable to have NIS (or NIS+) user information available through the UserDirectory.RetrieveUserGroups API.