Today when I was checking VMware blogs, I found this
interesting blog post......so thought to make note of it....
Lockdown Modes
In 5.1 only the “root” user could log into the DCUI.
In 5.5 you could add users to the “DCUI.Access” list in the Host Advanced
Settings. They did not need full administrative privileges. But they could
bypass lockdown mode and access the DCUI. Starting with vSphere 6.0, you can select either
Normal lockdown mode or Strict lockdown mode, depending on your security
requirements.
With vSphere 6 VMware is introducing a couple of new
concepts about Lockdown modes, Now there are three lockdown modes...
- Normal
Lockdown Mode
- Strict
Lockdown Mode
- Exception
Users
Normal Lockdown Mode
In normal lockdown mode the DCUI service is not stopped.
If the connection to the vCenter Server system is lost and access through
the vSphere Web Client is no longer available, privileged accounts can log
in to the ESXi host’s Direct Console Interface and exit lockdown mode.
Only the following accounts can access the Direct Console User Interface:
- Accounts
in the Exception User list for lockdown mode who have administrative
privileges on the host. The Exception Users list is meant for service
accounts that perform very specific tasks. Adding ESXi administrators
to this list defeats the purpose of lockdown mode.
- Users
defined in the DCUI.Access advanced option for the host. This option is
for emergency access to the Direct Console Interface in case the
connection to vCenter Server is lost. These users do not require
administrative privileges on the host.
Strict
Lockdown Mode
In strict lockdown mode, which is new in vSphere 6.0,
the DCUI service is stopped. If the connection to vCenter Server is lost
and thevSphere Web Client is no longer available, the ESXi host becomes
unavailable unless the ESXi Shell and SSH services are enabled and Exception
Users are defined. If you cannot restore the connection to the vCenter Server system, you
have to reinstall the host.
Exception Users
These are local
accounts or Microsoft Active Directory accounts with
permissions defined locally on the host where these users have host access. You
can define those exception locally on the host, but it’s not recommended for
normal user accounts, but rather for service accounts. You should set
permissions on these accounts to strict minimum and anly what’s required for
the application to do its task and with an account that needs only
read-only permissions to the ESXi host.
This is basically the
same principle of local server accounts on Windows member server, where you can
create local accounts, but as a best practice to give them only the permissions
they need…
Read the original full blog posts on VMware
blogs:
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