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I installed, several times, the new vCenter 6.0. I gave up on the Windows version as its Java processes quickly burn all available CPU time and the Windows VM soon didn't allow Remote Desktop connections any more most likely for lack of resources.

So I deployed the appliance.

This was in itself an adventure as the installer, apparently to keep it cross-platform, requires a "Client Integration Plugin" which won't install if the hosts file is write-protected or a hosts.bak file exists and won't uninstall if a hosts.new file exists or for any other reason related to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts*. The plug-in also won't work with Internet Explorer and I had to install Chrome just for this step.

Once the plug-in worked the deployment of the appliance to an ESX host was painless.

Knowing how flaky the vCenter appliance version 5.5 was, I started with creating local users on the appliance.

1. Log on to the vCenter appliance: 

ssh vcenter -lroot

2. Enable shell access from the vCenter console and start the shell:

shell.set --enabled trueshell

3. Create a local user: 

useradd -s /bin/bash username
usermod -A wheel username
chown username /home/username
chmod 700 /home/username

4. Edit the sudoers file:

visudo

5. Configure the sudoers file to allow the group wheel:

%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Then I proceeded on the Web interface logging in as administrator@vsphere.local. Note that the Web interface is ridiculously slow and takes a long time to become available after the appliance boots. And I mean a long time. It's a really, really long time.

Global Permissions

• Administration 
  • Access Control
    • Global Permissions

Manage: I added my local users (I created two) as "Administrators".

Single Sign-On

• Administration
  • Single Sign-On
    • Configuration

Policies: I configured the password and lockout policies for me.

• Administration
  • Single Sign-On
    • Users and Groups

Users: I created a vCenter-local user for me.

Groups: I added local users I created and my vCenter-local user to the Administrators group. (I also added them to the SystemConfiguration.Administrators group of which the Administrators group is a member but vCenter doesn't care about that.)

System Configuration

• Administration
  • Deployment
    • System Configuration
      • Nodes
        • [my vCenter node]

Manage: I joined the vCenter node to my Active Directory domain. This requires a reboot via the Actions menu.

After the reboot I logged on using my vCenter-local account.

Single Sign-On

• Administration
  • Single Sign-On
    • Configuration

Identity Sources: I added my Active Directory domain as an identity source.

• Administration
  • Single Sign-On
    • Users and Groups

Groups: I added an Active Directory group I created for this purpose to the vCenter Administrators group. I also added an Active Directory user I created for this purpose to the same group.

vCenter is now somewhat usable. I'll run it for few days and then add hosts.