vSphere Service Account Requirements

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This topic describes the minimum privileges required by the vSphere BOSH CPI.

Overview

A vSphere admin must grant minimum privileges to the vSphere service account that Ops Manager uses to manage vSphere resources.

The Ops Manager account needs privileges at both the vCenter server level and the Datacenter level.

The recommended permissions in this topic are configured using the API. UI permissions are not included because they vary between vSphere versions. API permissions are consistent across vSphere versions.

For more information about how permission levels and inheritance work in vSphere, see Hierarchical Inheritance of Permissions in the VMware documentation.

For more information about vSphere permissions, see vSphere Permissions and User Management Tasks in the VMware documentation.

vCenter-Level Privileges

Ops Manager assigns custom attributes to the virtual machines (VMs) it deploys to identify BOSH releases and job index information about each VM. vCenter APIs require vCenter server level access to manage these custom attributes.

The following table summarizes the privileges that an Ops Manager account requires at the vCenter Server instance level. Some of these privileges are inherited, and others must be granted by a vCenter admin:

Datacenter-Level Privileges

The following privileges must be set at the data center level:

Folder and Datastore-Level Privileges

You must grant the following privileges on any entities in a datacenter where you will deploy Ops Manager:

Datastore Object

Folder Object

Ops Manager creates a folder for VMs, stemcells, and persistent disks during installation. The folder contents change frequently as Ops Manager applies changes.

Host Object

Inventory Service Object

Resource Object

When using vAppImport to clone a VM, BOSH requires the resource migration privileges to create a new, powered-off VM based on a given stemcell. BOSH migrates the VM to the destination datastore, where Ops Manager deploys the VM and powers it on.

Profile-driven Storage Object

Virtual Machine Object

Configuration

Guest Operations

Interaction

Inventory

Provisioning

When cloning a stemcell, BOSH sets custom specifications, such as hostnames and network configurations, based on the stemcell operating system.

The VM download privilege allows BOSH to modify files within a VM, including links between VMs and persistent disks. When vMotion migrates disks in vSphere, BOSH uses these links to maintain the connections between VMs and their persistent disks.

Snapshot Management

Before Ops Manager deploys a new VM, it uses a snapshot to clone the stemcell image to the destination.

vApp Object

These privileges must be set at the resource pool level. VApp.ApplicationConfig is required when attaching or detaching persistent disks.