6.7

Table Of Contents
Managing Services and
Certificates with CLI Commands 4
A set of CLIs allows you to manage VMCA (VMware Certificate Authority), VECS (VMware Endpoint
Certificate Store), and VMware Directory Service (vmdir). The vSphere Certificate Manager utility
supports many related tasks as well, but the CLIs are required for manual certificate management and for
managing other services.
You normally access the CLI tools for managing certificates and associated services by using SSH to
connect to the appliance shell. See VMware Knowledge Base article 2100508 for more information.
Manual Certificate Replacement gives examples for replacing certificates using CLI commands.
Table 41. CLI Tools for Managing Certificates and Associated Services
CLI Description See
certool
Generate and manage certificates and
keys. Part of VMCAD, the VMware
Certificate Management service.
certool Initialization Commands Reference
vecs-cli
Manage the contents of VMware
Certificate Store instances. Part of
VMAFD.
vecs-cli Command Reference
dir-cli
Create and update certificates in
VMware Directory Service. Part of
VMAFD.
dir-cli Command Reference
sso-config
Some vCenter Single Sign-On
configuration. In most cases, use either
the vSphere Web Client or the
vSphere Client. Use this command for
two-factor authentication setup.
Command-line help.
Understanding vCenter Server Two-Factor
Authentication
service-control
Start or stop services, for example as
part of a certificate replacement
workflow.
CLI Locations
By default, you find the CLIs in the following locations on each node.
Windows
C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\vmafdd\vecs-cli.exe
C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\vmafdd\dir-cli.exe
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