5.5

Table Of Contents
About Identity Providers
In vCloud Director, an identity provider is a service that accepts credentials such as a user name and
password and authenticates the user as a member of a group or organization. vCloud Director recognizes
two kinds of identity providers:
Integrated
The integrated identity provider is a service provided by vCloud Director. It
can authenticate users who are created locally or imported from LDAP.
SAML
An organization can define a SAML identity provider that can be used as
part of a federated identity strategy. Such a strategy can enable an enterprise
to provide access to multiple, unrelated services, including vCloud Director,
with a single set of credentials. This sort of authentication strategy is often
referred to as "single sign-on." See “Retrieve or Update Organization
Settings,” on page 157.
The XML representation of a User can include an IdentityProvider element that specifies either INTEGRATED
or SAML. If the element is missing or empty, a value of INTEGRATED is assumed
Modifying User or Group Metadata
An organization administrator can modify metadata such as name and description for a user or group object
by creating a modified version of the User or Group element that represents the object and updating the
object by making a PUT request to the object's rel="edit" link, supplying the modified element in the
request body.
Create a User
An organization administrator can create user accounts that are local to the organization. Local user
accounts are stored in the vCloud Director database.
Every user exists within the context of an organization. An organization administrator can create a local user
in an organization by POSTing a User element to the organization’s add URL for users, as shown in
“Example: Create a Local User,” on page 220.
When you create a user, you must include the Role and Password elements in the request body. The role can
be a predefined role or one created by the organization administrator. For more information about
retrieving a list of predefined roles, see “Retrieve an Administrative View of a Cloud,” on page 50. For more
information about creating new roles, see “Create a Role,” on page 231.
Prerequisites
Verify that you are logged in to the vCloud API as an organization administrator or system administrator.
Procedure
1 Create a User element that defines the user account properties.
See the request portion of “Example: Create a Local User,” on page 220.
2 POST the User element to the organization's add URL for users.
The server creates a user account in the vCloud Director database and returns an updated User element to
the client.
Example: Create a Local User
This example adds the user to the organization created in “Example: Create an Organization,” on page 153.
The request includes an optional IsEnabled element that enables the user. If not present in the request,
IsEnabled defaults to false.
vCloud API Programming Guide
220 VMware, Inc.