Aria Automation Orchestrator + Node.js Introduction With the release of VMware vRealize Orchestrator 8.1 in April 2020, VMware added the ability to utilize new languages within your workflows and actions. These new languages included PowerShell, Node.js, and Python. Since then, I have seen very few documents detailing the use of this capability. Recently though, while attempting to migrate some legacy scripts from a vRealize Orchestrator 7.6 deployment to vRealize Orchestrator 8.

The VMware vSphere Security Configuration Guide has long been the standard baseline for hardening VMware vSphere environments utilized by engineers across the world. As such, with the release of VMware vSphere 8.0, VMware also released a new version of the security configuration guide. For those familiar with implementing United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) STIGs, the guidance provided within the VMware vSphere 8 Security Configuration Guide should seem quite familiar.

Update: DISA released the official VMware vSphere 7.0 STIG on March 15, 2023. Information related to my updated compliance content can be found here. While the United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) hasn’t officially released a STIG for VMware vSphere 7.0, VMware has released what they refer to as their “VMware vSphere 7.0 STIG Readiness Guide”. This guide, while not an official STIG, is based on years of experience assisting the DoD in generating the official DISA STIG releases for previous VMware vSphere product versions.

In my previous post titled Introduction to VMware vRealize Automation SaltStack SecOps, I provided an introduction to VMware Aria Automation SaltStack Automation SecOps, as well as a brief history and overview of the product’s capabilities. In this post, I’ll dive deeper into the product’s compliance management capabilities. Compliance Checks Compliance checks are at the foundation of VMware Aria Automation SaltStack SecOps compliance management. These checks provide the information necessary to identify the purpose of the check, the operating systems it applies to, the rationale for the check, and, more importantly, the state file responsible for implementing/remediating the check.

Recently, while attempting to change some settings on several instances of vRealize Orchestrator embedded within vRealize Automation 8.8.1 appliances, I found that I could not successfully authenticate to the vRealize Orchestrator Control Center interface. The interface is located at https://[vRA URL]/vco-controlcenter and requires that you provide the “root” user credentials to access it. Although I could authenticate to the virtual appliance consoles using the “root” credentials, I could not successfully authenticate to the vRealize Orchestrator Control Center interface.