6.5.1

Identity Sources for vCenter Server with vCenter Single
Sign-On
You can use identity sources to attach one or more domains to vCenter Single Sign-On. A domain is a
repository for users and groups that the vCenter Single Sign-On server can use for user authentication.
An identity source is a collection of user and group data. The user and group data is stored in Active
Directory, OpenLDAP, or locally to the operating system of the machine where vCenter Single Sign-On is
installed.
After installation, every instance of vCenter Single Sign-On has the identity source your_domain_name,
for example vsphere.local. This identity source is internal to vCenter Single Sign-On. A vCenter Single
Sign-On administrator can add identity sources, set the default identity source, and create users and
groups in the vsphere.local identity source.
Types of Identity Sources
vCenter Server versions earlier than version 5.1 supported Active Directory and local operating system
users as user repositories. As a result, local operating system users were always able to authenticate to
the vCenter Server system. vCenter Server version 5.1 and version 5.5 uses vCenter Single Sign-On for
authentication. See the vSphere 5.1 documentation for a list of supported identity sources with vCenter
Single Sign-On 5.1. vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 supports the following types of user repositories as
identity sources, but supports only one default identity source.
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Active Directory versions 2003 and later. Shown as Active Directory (Integrated Windows
Authentication) in the vSphere Web Client. vCenter Single Sign-On allows you to specify a single
Active Directory domain as an identity source. The domain can have child domains or be a forest root
domain. VMware KB article 2064250 discusses Microsoft Active Directory Trusts supported with
vCenter Single Sign-On.
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Active Directory over LDAP. vCenter Single Sign-On supports multiple Active Directory over LDAP
identity sources. This identity source type is included for compatibility with the vCenter Single Sign-
On service included with vSphere 5.1. Shown as Active Directory as an LDAP Server in the
vSphere Web Client.
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OpenLDAP versions 2.4 and later. vCenter Single Sign-On supports multiple OpenLDAP identity
sources. Shown as OpenLDAP in the vSphere Web Client.
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Local operating system users. Local operating system users are local to the operating system where
the vCenter Single Sign-On server is running. The local operating system identity source exists only
in basic vCenter Single Sign-On server deployments and is not available in deployments with multiple
vCenter Single Sign-On instances. Only one local operating system identity source is allowed. Shown
as localos in the vSphere Web Client.
Note Do not use local operating system users if the Platform Services Controller is on a different
machine than the vCenter Server system. Using local operating system users might make sense in
an embedded deployment but is not recommended.
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