To facilitate automated login for unattended applications, the vSphere Web Services SDK includes client-side credential store libraries and tools for automating the login process in a more secure manner. The libraries eliminate the need for system administrators to keep passwords in local scripts.
The credential store has the following components:
- A persistence file (credential store backing file) that stores authentication credentials. Currently, only passwords are supported. The persistence file maps a remote user account from an ESXi host to the password for that user on the server.
- Java and Perl libraries for managing the credential store programmatically. See Credential Store Methods for available methods.
- Java and Microsoft PowerShell-based command-line utilities for managing the credential store.
In addition to the libraries listed in Credential Store Libraries, the vSphere Web Services SDK includes the CredentialStoreAdmin tool for creating, examining, and managing the credential store. You can use the tool to examine the contents of the credential store, for example, the generated user accounts and passwords.
If you use these credential store client libraries in an application, you must set up the credential store on all client machines that run your application.
