Generate a VMware Aria Operations Passphrase for Node Adding

For new deployments or extensions of Aria Operations Cluster, the admin credentials are required to add the nodes. To prevent this, especially as a security concern, the administrator can generate a temporary passphrase in the Admin Console of Aria Operations. I would like to describe how this works in this blog post.

First, we log in to the admin console of Aria Operations:

Under “Nodes in the VMware Aria Operations Cluster” click on the Key icon, next generate a passphrase with an expiration time of x hours:

Note that the passphrase expires after a single use, so you need another passphrase for each node you want to add!

Now we switch to the perspective of the new node and select “Expand an Existing Installation”.

Click on Next under Getting Started

Then enter the new node name and select the type. In order for the new node to join the cluster, the primary node must be entered, validated and the certificate accepted.

On the next page, there is the option to either enter the admin credentials or to use the shared passphrase that we have created

Finally, click on finish and the node add process begins.

The node is in configuring status and is being prepared for use

And now you can also see the new node in the Primary Admin Portal.

That’s it for this blog post, if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment 🙂