Not accepting custom UID values. What is the UID range allowed in ESXi?

[Chandrakandh]

I am trying to create new user from the console and wants to assign UID greater than 1024, but it is automatically assign 1000 and increments for every new user and it is not accepting custom UID values.

I have updated in /etc/group, but not reflecting in the GUI. Is it the right place to update?How to change it?

Also is it possible to change the UID range it can accept?

[sflanders]

Out of curiosity, why does it need to be above 1024? In ESXi, adduser is well hidden: /usr/lib/vmware/auth/bin/adduser. If you run it with '-h' you will see it supports a '-u' flag which should do what you want.

[Chandrakandh]

Thanks. But still I dont see the added group in the console. Even if I update it from console is not updating..

Usually storage systems do not recommend using id <=1024 for mounting. Also we donot want the ESXi root user to be used for mounting. We want to have this also get integrated with Windows authentication and managed by AD. It will help in provisioning storage in standard way.

I will try it and update you how it goes..

[sflanders]

If you are manually updating the UID you need to change both /etc/passwd and /etc/group.

If you are adding a new user you can run: /usr/lib/vmware/auth/bin/adduser -u <UID> <USERNAME>

If you already have a user and want to change the UID you could also just run: /usr/lib/vmware/auth/bin/chuid <USERNAME> <NEW_UID>

I have tested this on an ESXi host running 5.1 to confirm it works as expected. Please note the correct information is related under the Users view (note: make sure to hit refresh on the client after making changes), but nothing is shown under the Group view.

[Chandrakandh]

Yes, it is shown in the GUI, but we can not update there...

Have you tried login with the created user? I am getting access denied when login with SSH..

[mcowger]

When you mount an NFS datastore, mounting as the root user (uid 0) is required...you can't use al alternate user.

[Chandrakandh]

oh..I..see...Is there any KB article or documentation with respect to this (using root for NFS)? Any reason behind it?

[sflanders · Accepted solution]

Please see: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-51-storage.... NFS has always been behind compared to Block on ESX/ESXi. Even in vSphere 5.1 only NFS v3 is supported. Hopefully one day they will support NFS v4 and/or pNFS.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

The document that Steve links to also mentions that using a user delegate is not supported.   It was a feature for ESX and  I beleive ESXi 3.5 may have had the option for it,  but the option was dropped.

[Chandrakandh]

Thanks folks for the information.

Also I believe we can create ESXi Admin group and give admin access those users. I have not tried it yet. Can these users used for NFS mount?

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/vsphere-5-1-full-admin-support-for-named-user-accounts.html

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/joining-vsphere-hosts-to-active-directory.html

[mcowger]

The ONLY source UID that will be used when ESXi mounts NFS for datastore use will be '0'. There's no ability to change it.

The above is just for users that login to the ESXi host, not what the host uses to mount NFS stores.