# Anyone using the knife-vsphere knife plugin?

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/anyone-using-the-knife-vsphere-knife-plugin/2731>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [April 2, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/anyone-using-the-knife-vsphere-knife-plugin/2731 "2012-04-02T15:54:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Van\_Fossan\_Randy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8797f3/32.png) [@Van\_Fossan\_Randy](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Van_Fossan_Randy)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/anyone-using-the-knife-vsphere-knife-plugin/2731/1 "2012-04-02T15:54:09Z")

</div>

Anyone using the knife-vsphere knife plugin? I am trying to use it  
without success. We have a large Virtual environment with 3000+ VM’s  
with many Virtual Center Servers, Data Centers and clusters. Some are  
geographically dispersed.

We are using Active Directoy integration with ESXi and Virtual Center.  
The documentation refers to named user authentication, so a domain user  
in the format domain\username should work?

I always get the following whe running a “knife vsphere template list”

ERROR: RbVmomi::Fault: InvalidLogin: Cannot complete login due to an  
incorrect user name or password.

I suppose the next step is to create local accounts on a Virtual Center  
server and re-test???

Thanks

Randy

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Torben\_Knerr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@Torben\_Knerr](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Torben_Knerr)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/anyone-using-the-knife-vsphere-knife-plugin/2731/2 "2012-04-03T05:39:02Z")

</div>

Hi Randy,

I've had "knife vsphere template list" working with a local user. Apart  
from that test I haven't really used it yet, but that was my plan at least  
(don't have the time to work in that currently)...

So I would also be interested in other peoples experience with it.

BTW: did you create the vm templates manually? I've been setting up some  
Vagrant baseboxes using VeeWee and and wanted to use the same mechanism for  
creating vsphere vm templates, but somehow I couldn't get it to work that  
way...

Cheers,  
Torben  
Am 02.04.2012 17:54 schrieb "Van Fossan,Randy" [vanfossr@oclc.org](mailto:vanfossr@oclc.org):

> Anyone using the knife-vsphere knife plugin? I am trying to use it  
> without success. We have a large Virtual environment with 3000+ VM’s with  
> many Virtual Center Servers, Data Centers and clusters. Some are  
> geographically dispersed.\*\*\*\*
> 
> * * *
> 
> We are using Active Directoy integration with ESXi and Virtual Center.  
> The documentation refers to named user authentication, so a domain user  
> in the format domain\username should work?\*\*\*\*
> 
> * * *
> 
> I always get the following whe running a “knife vsphere template list”\*\*\*  
> \*
> 
> ERROR: RbVmomi::Fault: InvalidLogin: Cannot complete login due to an  
> incorrect user name or password.\*\*\*\*
> 
> * * *
> 
> I suppose the next step is to create local accounts on a Virtual Center  
> server and re-test???\*\*\*\*
> 
> * * *
> 
> Thanks\*\*\*\*
> 
> Randy\*\*\*\*
> 
> * * *

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jesse\_Campbell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/jesse_campbell/32/251_2.png) [@Jesse\_Campbell](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Jesse_Campbell)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/anyone-using-the-knife-vsphere-knife-plugin/2731/3 "2012-04-03T13:33:43Z")

</div>

I use it a little with my 300vm infrastructure, and I'm one of the  
contributors to the plugin.  
We also run AD and I login without trouble as an AD user.  
I do not specify the domain anywhere in the configuration, it appears  
to use the default AD domain of the vcenter server. I specify the  
username as:  
username

Here's the appropriate section of my knife.rb:

knife[:vsphere\_host] = "192.168.10.70"  
knife[:vsphere\_user] = "jesse"  
knife[:vsphere\_pass] = "password"  
knife[:vsphere\_dc] = "datacenter"

-Jesse

On Apr 3, 2012 1:39 AM, "Torben Knerr" [ukio@gmx.de](mailto:ukio@gmx.de) wrote:

> Hi Randy,
> 
> I've had "knife vsphere template list" working with a local user. Apart from that test I haven't really used it yet, but that was my plan at least (don't have the time to work in that currently)...
> 
> So I would also be interested in other peoples experience with it.
> 
> BTW: did you create the vm templates manually? I've been setting up some Vagrant baseboxes using VeeWee and and wanted to use the same mechanism for creating vsphere vm templates, but somehow I couldn't get it to work that way...
> 
> Cheers,  
> Torben
> 
> Am 02.04.2012 17:54 schrieb "Van Fossan,Randy" [vanfossr@oclc.org](mailto:vanfossr@oclc.org):
> 
> > Anyone using the knife-vsphere knife plugin? I am trying to use it without success. We have a large Virtual environment with 3000+ VM’s with many Virtual Center Servers, Data Centers and clusters. Some are geographically dispersed.
> > 
> > We are using Active Directoy integration with ESXi and Virtual Center. The documentation refers to named user authentication, so a domain user in the format domain\username should work?
> > 
> > I always get the following whe running a “knife vsphere template list”
> > 
> > ERROR: RbVmomi::Fault: InvalidLogin: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.
> > 
> > I suppose the next step is to create local accounts on a Virtual Center server and re-test???
> > 
> > Thanks
> > 
> > Randy

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Idrossi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@Idrossi](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Idrossi)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/anyone-using-the-knife-vsphere-knife-plugin/2731/4 "2012-04-03T14:02:06Z")

</div>

I have used it only in testing. It did not work perfectly with all of the options. I imagine it was designed to work in specific situations. I used it around February for those tests and Ezra Pagel, the maintainer, was very helpful. We are planning to start incorporating it into our operations within the coming months.

Ian

From: [derukio@gmail.com](mailto:derukio@gmail.com) [[mailto:derukio@gmail.com](mailto:derukio@gmail.com)] On Behalf Of Torben Knerr  
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2012 1:39 AM  
To: [chef@lists.opscode.com](mailto:chef@lists.opscode.com)  
Subject: [chef] Re: Anyone using the knife-vsphere knife plugin ?

Hi Randy,

I’ve had “knife vsphere template list” working with a local user. Apart from that test I haven’t really used it yet, but that was my plan at least (don’t have the time to work in that currently)…

So I would also be interested in other peoples experience with it.

BTW: did you create the vm templates manually? I’ve been setting up some Vagrant baseboxes using VeeWee and and wanted to use the same mechanism for creating vsphere vm templates, but somehow I couldn’t get it to work that way…

Cheers,  
Torben  
Am 02.04.2012 17:54 schrieb “Van Fossan,Randy” \<[vanfossr@oclc.org](mailto:vanfossr@oclc.org)[mailto:vanfossr@oclc.org](mailto:vanfossr@oclc.org)\>:  
Anyone using the knife-vsphere knife plugin? I am trying to use it without success. We have a large Virtual environment with 3000+ VM’s with many Virtual Center Servers, Data Centers and clusters. Some are geographically dispersed.

We are using Active Directoy integration with ESXi and Virtual Center. The documentation refers to named user authentication, so a domain user in the format domain\username should work?

I always get the following whe running a "knife vsphere template list"  
ERROR: RbVmomi::Fault: InvalidLogin: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.

I suppose the next step is to create local accounts on a Virtual Center server and re-test???

Thanks  
Randy

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jesse\_Campbell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/jesse_campbell/32/251_2.png) [@Jesse\_Campbell](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Jesse_Campbell)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/anyone-using-the-knife-vsphere-knife-plugin/2731/5 "2012-04-04T16:28:38Z")

</div>

Ian: Which options have you run into trouble with? The plugin needs a  
lot of testing, and it would be great to get more input on  
improvements necessary.

Randy: Have you had any progress getting your AD accounts to authenticate?  
I did some testing on my machine, I am unable to authenticate using  
domain\user, but I am able to authenticate with:  
domain\user  
user@domain  
user

-Jesse