Configure SSH Key Based Access to a vRealize Log Insight Appliance

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide a procedure to configure SSH key based access to a vRealize Log Insight appliance.

Environment

VMware vRealize Log Insight 8.x

Resolution

Follow the steps below to enable SSH key based access to VRLI appliance 

1. Generate the public and private SSH keys from the connecting machine.
2. Log into the Primary node as root via SSH or Console, pressing ALT+F1 in a Console to log in.
3. Open the /root/.ssh/authorized_keys file in a text editor.
4. Paste the generate public SSH key then save and close the file.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 on all other nodes in the vRealize Log Insight Cluster.
6. Ensure that you can SSH to the vRealize Log Insight appliance via key based access.

 
The SSH key based access is expected to partly break after vRealize Log Insight upgrade due to remote host identification change.
To restore access:

1. From the connecting machine, remove the old key's fingerprint by running:

ssh-keygen -f "/path-to-.ssh-directory/known_hosts" -R "vrli_ip_or_fqdn"

Note: Repeat this command for each node in the vRealize Log Insight Cluster.

2. SSH to the vRealize Log Insight appliance and add it to the known hosts file when prompted.