How to Join VMware ESXi 5.1 to Active Directory Domain

It’s important to join your ESXi host to a Windows domain if there is one present in your architecture. By allowing AD to authenticate, you can simply delegate permissions based on your AD groups such as the Domain Admins’ group.

Steps to enable Active Directory authentication:

1. Log in to your ESXi hosts locally and click on Configuration.
2. On the left side of the dialog, select Authentication Services and then click Properties.
3. From the Select Directory Services Type drop-down, choose Active Directory.
4. In the domain settings, you can add your domain in one of two ways:
   1. Simply add mydomain.local; this will add the computer account for ESXi in the default Computers OU.
   2. To specify a different OU where you want the ESXi computer account to be located, use this format: mydomain.local/vsphere.
5. Click Join domain and provide credentials when prompted with enough privileges to add computers to the domain.
6. Add the AD user or group to the ESXi host and assign the appropriate role.

In this Video, we will
– Join ESXi 5.1 U1 to Active Directory Domain
– Assign ESXi Host Permissions to Domain Users
– Connect to ESXi via vSphere Client as Domain User
– Connect to ESXi via SSH Client as Domain User