Understanding VMware Roles and Permissions

VMware Virtualcenter roles and permissions are one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of Virtual Infrastructure 3.  We constantly receive calls into tech support asking how-to assign the appropriate rights to users and their virtual machines, clusters, etc.

A new article I saw on VIOPS today that helps one understand some of the basic premises of permissions and roles. Sometimes a good overview like this one, written from thirty-thousand feet, helps one solidify VMware’s security model in one’s mind. The article is broken down into major sections:

1. Concepts
2. Definitions
3. Datastores and Networks have no direct privileges
4. Definitions
5. VMs inherit privileges from two sources
6. Clusters and Hosts implicitly are resource pool
7. Privileges Needed to Create a Virtual Machine
8. Privileges Needed for various Inventory Manipulations

Anything to help understand VMware’s roles and permissions is a good thing. Read VI3 Roles and Permissions

Concepts behind this are explained in the paper Management VirtualCenter Roles and Permissions.