How to Log into your vCenter Instance with MacStadium

MacStadium offers the industry-leading solution for virtualizing macOS, Windows, and Linux on genuine Apple hardware by pairing it with VMware. We offer the latest stable version of the VMware ESXi hypervisor on dedicated hardware, so extending your on-premises VMware setup to the cloud is secure and won’t require you to remake the wheel in the process.

Today, we’ll walk through the process of making your first connection to your vCenter instance for controlling your VMware private cloud.

Making the VPN Connection

In order to securely connect to your VMware environment, you’ll need to open a VPN connection from your local machine to your Mac cloud. We recommend that you use OpenConnect to make this connection, as it is free and easily obtainable for all common operating systems.

If you’re working on a Mac locally, you can install OpenConnect with Homebrew by running:

brew install openconnect

If you are working on a Windows machine locally, you can follow this guide to install OpenConnect.

Once you have OpenConnect installed, you will need to refer to your IP Plan in the MacStadium Portal to get your IP address and credentials, which will look like this:

Then open a terminal locally, and simply run:

sudo openconnect -u <Username> <Server Address>

Then you’ll need to enter your sudo password (if on Mac), and then type “yes” when prompted. Finally, you’ll need to enter your environment password, as shown above.

NOTE: You’ll need to keep this terminal open in order to maintain the connection.

Accessing the vCenter UI

Once you’re connected via VPN, you can connect to your vCenter instance over a secure connection.

Use the information in the IP Plan available via the MacStadium portal to find the private IP address of your vCenter web client and your login credentials.

Due to modern web browsers dropping support for the Flash client, it is best to use the HTML5 vCenter client. We recommend running at least vSphere 6.7 to have the best experience with the HTML5 client. If you are using an older version, you can open a support ticket with MacStadium to upgrade your environment.

However, as long as you are using vSphere 6.5+ then you will be able to access the HTML5 client, just like you would with newer versions, by appending “/ui” to your vCenter IP address, for example: https://xx.xx.xxx.xx/ui

Accessing the vCenter Appliance Management Interface (VAMI)

The VAMI provides a convenient backend access point for additional management functionality, such as rebooting your vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), as well as checking your services and disk space.

This connection also requires an open VPN connection. While connected via VPN, you can simply navigate in your browser to the same private IP address described above, but in place of “/ui”, you’ll need to pass the port number “5480,” for example:

https://xx.xx.xxx.xx:5480

NOTE: Your username will always be “root” when you go to log in to the VAMI; however, you will use your same password as above.

Looking to Move or Extend your On-Premises VMware Env to the Cloud?

MacStadium’s VMware private cloud environments are deployed with VMware Enterprise Plus licensing which includes ESXi, vSphere, and the vCenter app for efficient management and scaling on certified Mac hardware. Reach out to our sales engineers to learn more.