Command Line Certificate Login

You can use certificate-based authentication with tools such as curl or wget to access the VCH Admin log server.

With TLS Client Authentication

If you deployed the VCH with client authentication by using --tls-cname or by specifying a static IP address on the client network, you can point curl to the cert.pem and key.pem files for the VCH. The following example authenticates connections to the port-layer.log file.

curl https://vch_address:2378/logs/port-layer.log 
--key ./cert_folder/key.pem 
--certificate ./cert_folder/cert.pem

NOTE: If your certificates are self-signed, you might also need to specify the curl -k flag.

In the example above, cert_folder is either of the following locations:

  • The folder with the same name as the VCH, in the directory from which you ran vic-machine create.
  • A folder that you specified in the vic-machine create --cert-path option.

Without Client Authentication

If you deployed the VCH without client authentication by using either of --no-tls or --no-tlsverify, you can use curl to access the logs but you must first authenticate connections to VCH Admin by using the vSphere username and password.

  1. Log in to VCH Admin to gather an authentication cookie for subsequent access:

    curl -sk https://vch_address:2378/authentication 
-XPOST -F username=vsphere_username 
-F password=vsphere_password 
-D cookies_file

  2. Use the cookie from Step 1 in a curl command to access the logs.

    curl -sk https://vch_address:2378/logs/port-layer.log 
-b cookies_file