As an alternative to a package installation, you can deploy vMA on an ESXi host and run vCLI commands from there. vMA is a virtual machine you can use to run scripts to manage ESXi systems. vMA includes a Linux environment, vCLI, and other prepackaged software.Setting up vMA consists of a few tasks. The vSphere Management Assistant Guide discusses each task in detail.See the vSphere Management Assistant Guide for prerequisites and deployment details.
■ Password for the vi-admin user. The vi-admin user has superuser privileges on vMA. You cannot log in to vMA as the root user.
3 (Optional) Add a vCenter Server system or one or more ESXi systems as targets. You configure vMA for Active Directory authentication and can then add ESXi and vCenter Server systems to vMA without having to store passwords in the vMA credential store. See the vSphere Management Assistant Guide.