Just Enoght vSphere rights for replication

Just enough rights for a user to see and manage VMs in order to setup migration replication with either Azure Migrate or VMware Availability.

We are seeing more and more moving VMs around between providers, just a few years back this was not something that anybody wanted to go into, but the market is in a transition where offboarding is as important as onboarding. Good for the customer.

To ensure that the rights are just enough so that Azure Migrate or VMware Availability Onprem can’t see all VMs in your datacenter you need to limit the rights that the appliance is given.

To help out I have created a small permission script that can help with the setup of permissions.

It will create two roles, one global and one for the tenant resource group. Then it will setup the permissions so it’s just enough for the replication to work.

If you do not want the VCDA plugin into vCenter then you can remove the lines that define “Extension”

$roleGlobal = "vcda_repl_global"
$roleTenant = "vcda_repl_tenant"
$viserver = "vcsa1.home.lab"
$tenantRespool = "tenant1.comp1.01 (6284cdf1-cb7f-43bb-8e0f-09f439e09555)"
$vsphereUser = "tenant1_vcda"

Connect-VIServer -server $viserver

$roleIds = @()
$roleIds += "System.Anonymous"
$roleIds += "System.View"
$roleIds += "System.Read"
### Cryptographic Operations
$roleIds += "Cryptographer.ManageKeys"
$roleIds += "Cryptographer.RegisterHost"
### Datastore Privileges
$roleIds += "Datastore.Browse"
$roleIds += "Datastore.Config"
$roleIds += "Datastore.FileManagement"
### Extension Privileges - Not needed if you dont want plugin to vcenter 
$roleIds += "Extension.Register"
$roleIds += "Extension.Unregister"
$roleIds += "Extension.Update"
### Host Configuration Privileges
$roleIds += "Host.Config.Connection"
### Profile-driven Storage Privileges
$roleIds += "StorageProfile.View"
### Storage Views Privileges
$roleIds += "StorageViews"
### Host.Hbr.HbrManagement
$roleIds += "Host.Hbr.HbrManagement"

$roleIdsTenant = @()
### Resource Privileges
$roleIdsTenant += "Resource.AssignVMToPool"
### Virtual Machine Configuration Privileges
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk"
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Config.Settings"
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk"
### Virtual Machine Inventory Privileges
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Inventory.register"
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Inventory.Unregister"
### Virtual Machine Interaction
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn"
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff"
### Virtual Machine State Privileges
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.State.CreateSnapshot"
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.State.RemoveSnapshot"
### Host.Hbr.HbrManagement
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Hbr.ConfigureReplication"
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Hbr.ReplicaManagement"
$roleIdsTenant += "VirtualMachine.Hbr.MonitorReplication"


New-VIRole -name $roleGlobal -Privilege (Get-VIPrivilege -Server $viserver -id $roleIds) -Server $viserver
Set-VIRole -Role $roleGlobal -AddPrivilege (Get-VIPrivilege -Server $viserver -id $roleIds) -Server $viserver

New-VIRole -name $roleTenant -Privilege (Get-VIPrivilege -Server $viserver -id $roleIdsTenant) -Server $viserver
Set-VIRole -Role $roleTenant -AddPrivilege (Get-VIPrivilege -Server $viserver -id $roleIdsTenant) -Server $viserver

$globalPrivileges = Get-VIPrivilege -Role $roleGlobal

$rootFolder = Get-Folder -NoRecursion
$permission1 = New-VIPermission -Entity $rootFolder -Principal (Get-VIAccount -Domain vsphere.local -User $vsphereUser ) -Role $roleGlobal -Propagate:$false

$tenantRespool = Get-ResourcePool -Name $tenantRespool
$permission1 = New-VIPermission -Entity  $tenantRespool -Principal (Get-VIAccount -Domain vsphere.local -User $vsphereUser ) -Role $roleTenant -Propagate:$true