By default, the installation of VMware’s vCenter and ESXi use self-signed certificates with hardcoded passwords to protect the private keys of their SSL web services. While it gets you services that work out of the box, it is really bad form and a poor security practice. If you install (or update to) version 5.1 of the VMware infrastructure components, you will be left with a bunch of warning windows like the ones on the left. If you’re lucky enough to have access to your own public key infrastructure, you can issue your own certificates to replace those provided by VMware so you don’t see constant warnings. However, if you undertake this effort be forewarned: VMWare’s guidance (Replacing Default vCenter 5.1[…]

One of the biggest complaints I’ve had with VMWare vSphere and VMWare ESX/ESXi over the last few years is that managing my virtual machines from my Mac computer was a hassle. The VMWare management utilities are all Windows-only, and even the few web-based tools either do not work or are extremely limited from a Mac. While it isn’t perfect yet, VMWare vSphere 5 has made it so you can actually do just about anything you need to using a Macintosh computer; you just need to go through a few hurdles. To enable the administration of your various virtual machines, storage, clusters, datacenters, and the like, you can now use the vSphere 5 Web Client. Before it can be used, it must[…]