Configure SSH Key Based Access to a Aria Operations Appliance

Products

• VMware Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations) 8.x

Issue/Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide a procedure to configure SSH key based access to a Aria Operations Appliance.

Environment

VMware Aria Operations 8.18.x

Resolution

Phase 1: Client-Side Operations

 

1. Generate a new cryptographic key pair on the external client system. This command should be executed by the user who needs SSH access to Aria Operations (the "test" user and rsa setting are used here for demonstration purposes):

 

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_vcfops_test_new

 

2. Extract the generated public key string to the standard output:

 

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa_vcfops_test_new.pub

 

Phase 2: VCF Operations Appliance Operations

 

1. Authenticate to the VCF Operations appliance as the test user utilizing the existing active private key:

 

ssh -i ~/.ssh/<CURRENT_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH> test@<Aria Operations FQDN>

 

2. Open the authorized keys file in a text editor:

 

vi ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

 

3. Append the new public key string extracted during Phase 1 to a new line at the end of the file.

4. Remove the specific line containing the deprecated public key string to revoke previous authorization access.

5. Save the changes and exit the editor.

6. Enforce explicit strict permission boundaries on the SSH directory and configuration file to comply with system hardening requirements:

 

chmod 700 ~/.ssh

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

 

Phase 3: Connection Validation

 

1. Retain the active primary SSH session without disconnecting.

2. Initialize a secondary terminal session on the external client.

3. Validate authentication utilizing the newly generated private key:

 

ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_vcfops_test_new test@<Aria Operations FQDN>

 

4. Terminate the primary session only after explicitly validating that the secondary connection succeeds.