Setting user privileges to allow users to create virtual machines in vCenter Server 4.x and later

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article outlines the minimum privileges required by users to create virtual machines.

Symptoms:

• Unable to create a virtual machine.
• Creating a virtual machine fails.
• You see the errors:
  
  
• Unable to access datastore
• You do not have the privilege 'Resource > Assign virtual machine to resource pool' on the selected Cluster.

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x

Resolution

To resolve this issue:

1. Clone the Read Only role and assign it a name at the ESXi host level.
2. Edit the newly created role and assign the following permissions/privileges to it:
   
   
   • DataStore > Allocate Space
   • Virtual Machine > Configuration > Add New Disk
   • Virtual Machine > Configuration > Add or Remove Device
   • Virtual Machine > Inventory > Create New
   • Network > Assign Network
   • Resource > Assign Virtual Machine to Resource Pool
     
     
3. Assign this role to the user at the ESXi/ESX host level or in VMware vCenter Server at the vCenter server or Datacenter level.
4. Create a test virtual machine to verify.

For more information, see Creating a role and assigning virtual machine creation and management privileges to a Domain or Local User/Group (1023189).

Additional Information

vCenter Server 4.x/5.0 でのユーザーによる仮想マシンの作成を許可するユーザー権限を設定する
设置可允许用户在 vCenter Server 4.x 和 5.0 中创建虚拟机的用户特权