Checking Password Expiry For VMware Cloud Foundation Management Components

Within a VMware Cloud Foundation instance, SDDC Manager is used to manage the lifecycle of passwords (or credentials). While we provide the ability to rotate (either scheduled or manually) currently there is no easy way to check when a particular password is due to expire, which can lead to appliance root passwords expiring, which will cause all sorts of issues. The ability to monitor expiry is something that is being worked on, but as a stop gap I put together the script below which leverages PowerVCF and also a currently undocumented API for validating credentials.

The script has a function called Get-VCFPasswordExpiry that accepts the following parameters

  • -fqdn (FQDN of the SDDC Manager)
  • -username (SDDC Manager Username – Must have the ADMIN role)
  • -password (SDDC Manager password)
  • -resourceType (Optional parameter to specify a resourceType. If not passed, all resources will be checked. If passed (e.g. VCENTER) then only that resourceType will be checked. Supported resource types are

PowerVCF is a requirement. If you dont already have it run the following

Install-Module -Name PowerVCF

The code takes a while to run as it needs to do the following to check password expiry

  • Connect to SDDC Manager to retrieve an API token
  • Retrieve a list of all credentials
  • Using the resourceID of each credential
    • Perform a credential validation
    • Wait for the validation to complete
    • Parse the results for the expiry details
    • Add all the results to an array and present in a table (Kudos to Ken Gould for assistance with the presentation of this piece!)

In this example script I am returning all non SERVICE user accounts regardless of expiry (SERVICE account passwords are system managed). You could get more granular by adding something like this to only display accounts with passwords due to expire in less than 14 days

if ($validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.passwordDetails.numberOfDaysToExpiry -lt 14) {
               Write-Output "Password for username $($validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.username) expires in $($validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.passwordDetails.numberOfDaysToExpiry) days"

Here is the script content. As always feedback is welcome. Also posted in Github here if anyone wants to fork and improve

# Script to check the password expiry of VMware Cloud Foundation Credentials
# Written by Brian O'Connell - VMware

#User Variables
$sddcManagerFQDN = ""
$sddcManagerAdminUser = "administrator@vsphere.local"
$sddcManagerAdminPassword = "VMw@re1!"

# Requires PowerVCF Module
#Requires -Module PowerVCF

Function Get-VCFPasswordExpiry

    Param (
        [Parameter (Mandatory = $true)] [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()] [String]$fqdn,
        [Parameter (Mandatory = $true)] [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()] [String]$username,
        [Parameter (Mandatory = $true)] [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()] [String]$password,
        [Parameter (Mandatory = $false)] [ValidateSet("VCENTER", "PSC", "ESXI", "BACKUP", "NSXT_MANAGER", "NSXT_EDGE", "VRSLCM", "WSA", "VROPS", "VRLI", "VRA", "VXRAIL_MANAGER")] [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()] [String]$resourceType
# Request an SDDC manager Token
Request-VCFToken -fqdn $fqdn -username $username -password $password
# Build the required headers
$credentialheaders = @{"Content-Type" = "application/json"}
$credentialheaders.Add("Authorization", "Bearer $accessToken")
# Get all credential objects that are not type SERVICE
if (!$PsBoundParameters.ContainsKey("resourceType")) {
$credentials = Get-VCFCredential | where-object {$_.accountType -ne "SERVICE"}
else {
    $credentials = Get-VCFCredential -resourceType $resourceType | where-object {$_.accountType -ne "SERVICE"}
$validationArray = @()
Foreach ($credential in $credentials) {
    $resourceType = $credential.resource.resourceType
    $resourceID = $credential.resource.resourceId
    $username = $credential.username
    $credentialType = $credential.credentialType
    $body = '[
        "resourceType": "'+$resourceType+'",
        "resourceId": "'+$resourceID+'",
        "credentials": [
                "username": "'+$username+'",
                "credentialType": "'+$credentialType+'"
    $uri = "https://$sddcManagerFQDN/v1/credentials/validations"
    # Submit a credential validation request
            $response = Invoke-RestMethod -Method POST -URI $uri -headers $credentialheaders -body $body
            $validationTaskId = $

            Do {
                # Keep checking until executionStatus is not IN_PROGRESS
                $validationTaskuri = "https://$sddcManagerFQDN/v1/credentials/validations/$validationTaskId"
                $validationTaskResponse = Invoke-RestMethod -Method GET -URI $validationTaskuri -headers $credentialheaders
            While ($validationTaskResponse.executionStatus -eq "IN_PROGRESS")
            # Build the output
            $validationObject = New-Object -TypeName psobject
            $validationObject | Add-Member -notepropertyname 'Resource Name' -notepropertyvalue $validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.resourceName
            $validationObject | Add-Member -notepropertyname 'Username' -notepropertyvalue $validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.username
            $validationObject | Add-Member -notepropertyname 'Number Of Days To Expiry' -notepropertyvalue $validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.passwordDetails.numberOfDaysToExpiry
            Write-Output "Checking Password Expiry for username $($validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.username) from resource $($validationTaskResponse.validationChecks.resourceName)"
            # Add each credential result to the array
            $validationArray += $validationObject
# Print the array

# Run the function
Get-VCFPasswordExpiry -fqdn $sddcManagerFQDN -username $sddcManagerAdminUser -password $sddcManagerAdminPassword

# Run the function with resourceType VCENTER
# Get-VCFPasswordExpiry -fqdn $sddcManagerFQDN -username $sddcManagerAdminUser -password $sddcManagerAdminPassword -resourceType VCENTER

Here is a screenshot of the result

9 thoughts on “Checking Password Expiry For VMware Cloud Foundation Management Components

  1. Looks like this script doesn’t work anymore. I just tried it with Powershell 7.1 and the PowerVCF module is 2.1.7 , Is there an updated script or logic to get this script working? –Fellow vExpert (Pradeep Adapa)

  2. Looks like this code doesn’t work anymore. i just tried it with PowerShell 7.1 and PowerVCF Module 2.1.7 on my VCF SDDC Manager and it didn’t work. Interestingly there was no error after executing the script as well. It just went to the next line in Powershell after executing the script. Let me know if there is an updated version or if this can be resolved. — Pradeep Adapa (Fellow vExpert)

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