Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter 1.6 Technical White Paper
Irfan Azam
Dell Management Plug-in for VMware
vCenter: Custom SSL/HTTPS
Certificate using Microsoft Windows
Certification Authority
This Dell Technical white paper describes the necessary steps to
generate and consume a cus t om S SL/HTTPS certificate for the Dell
Management Plug-in using Microsoft Windows Certification Authority.
Yousaf Sajjad
Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter: Custom SSL/HTTPS Certificate using Microsoft Windows
CA
This document is for informational purposes only and may contain typographical errors and
technical inaccuracies. The content is provided as is, without express or implied warranties of any
kind.
© 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell and its affiliates cannot be responsible for errors or omissions
in typography or photography. Dell, the Dell logo, and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel and
Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft,
Windows, and Windows Server are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation
in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this
document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims
proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.
January 2013| Rev 1.0
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Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter: Custom SSL/HTTPS Certificate using Microsoft Windows
CA
Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4
Audience and scope ................................................................................................... 4
Prerequisites ........................................................................................................... 4
Why use an SSL certificate? ........................................................................................... 4
Why use a custom certificate? ........................................................................................ 4
Custom certificate attributes ......................................................................................... 5
Generating a CSR using the Administration Console .............................................................. 5
Certificate signing using Microsoft Windows CA ................................................................... 8
Uploading a certificate to the virtual appliance ................................................................ 12
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Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter: Custom SSL/HTTPS Certificate using Microsoft Windows
CA
Introduction
The Dell Management Plug-in is a virtual appliance used to reduce tools and tasks associated with the
management and deployment of Dell servers in your virtual environment. It reduces complexity by
natively integrating the key management capabilities into the vCenter console. It minimizes risk with
hardware alarms, streamlined firmware updates and deep visibility into inventory and provides health
and warranty details.
The Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter is designed to streamline the management processes
in your data center environment. It lets you use VMware vCenter to manage your entire infrastructureboth physical and virtual. From firmware updates to bare metal deployment, the Dell Management
Plug-In for VMware vCenter expands and enriches your data center management experience with Dell
PowerEdge servers.
This white paper provides all necessary information to generate and consume custom SSL/HTTPS
certificate for the Dell Management Plug-in using Microsoft Windows Certification Authority.
Audience and scope
The scope of the document is to provide a detailed procedure towards setting up a custom SSL/HTTPS
certificate for Dell Management Plug-in appliance using Microsoft Windows Certification Authority. This
white paper is intended for sale engineers, field application engineers, test engineers, architects or IT
administrators who are involved in the decision-making process for the planning, configuration, and
operation of a dynamic datacenter. This document is intended to assist you in using the Dell
Management Plug-in for managing vSphere hosts, which are Dell servers in a vCenter.
Prerequisites
You are expected to have working knowledge of networking, SSL, HTTP and digital certificates. This
document also requires the Microsoft Windows Certification Authority services running on a server
within the same/trusted network where the Dell Management Plug-in is running.
You are expected to know the steps for installing Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter and
registering it to a vCenter. You can find more information on installing and registering the Dell
Management Plug-in to a vCenter in Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter User’s Guide.
Why use an SSL certificate?
For secure HTTPS communication, the web server requires the SSL certificate on the Dell Management
Plug-in.
Why use a custom certificate?
Uploading a custom SSL certificate, signed by a trusted CA, establishes a trusted/secure client and
server communication within the organization. This custom certificate fixes the trusted certificate
exception in the web browser. In addition, it fixes the problem of accepting the virtual appliance
certificate while connecting to the vSphere client or browsing the virtual appliance content within
vSphere client.
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