Unable to query VMs on vcenter server appliance using pyvmomi - vmware

Question

I am getting the following error when trying to use pyvmomi to get a list of VMs from the vcenter server appliance.
pyVmomi.VmomiSupport.vim.fault.NoPermission: (vim.fault.NoPermission) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
msg = 'Permission to perform this operation was denied.',
faultCause = <unset>,
faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [],
object = 'vim.Folder:group-d1',
privilegeId = 'System.View',
missingPrivileges = (vim.fault.NoPermission.EntityPrivileges) [
(vim.fault.NoPermission.EntityPrivileges) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
entity = 'vim.Folder:group-d1',
privilegeIds = (str) [
'System.View'
]
}
]
}
This is my python code :
import atexit
import ssl
from pyVim import connect
from pyVmomi import vim
import pdb
def vconnect(hostIP,port=None):
if (True):
context = ssl.SSLContext(ssl.PROTOCOL_TLS_CLIENT)
context.check_hostname = False
context.verify_mode = ssl.CERT_NONE # disable our certificate checking for lab
else:
context = ssl.create_default_context()
context.options |= ssl.OP_NO_TLSv1_3
#cipher = 'DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256'
#context.set_ciphers(cipher)
pdb.set_trace()
if (port):
service_instance = connect.SmartConnect(host=str(hostIP), # build python connection to vSphere
user="root",
pwd="HagsLoff#1324",
port=port,
sslContext=context)
else:
service_instance = connect.SmartConnect(host=str(hostIP), # build python connection to vSphere
user="root",
pwd="HagsLoff#1324",
sslContext=context)
atexit.register(connect.Disconnect, service_instance) # build disconnect logic
content = service_instance.RetrieveContent()
container = content.rootFolder # starting point to look into
viewType = [vim.VirtualMachine] # object types to look for
recursive = True # whether we should look into it recursively
containerView = content.viewManager.CreateContainerView(container, viewType, recursive) # create container view
children = containerView.view
for child in children: # for each statement to iterate all names of VMs in the environment
summary = child.summary
print(summary.config.name)
# connecting to ESX host
vconnect("192.168.160.160")
# connecting to vcsa VM
vconnect("192.168.160.170", 443)
So I am using a nested ESX that runs on my workstation 16. I have deployed the vcsa on this ESX host via the windows CLI installer. Querying the ESX host works fine whereas querying the vcenter server appliance (vcsa) gives me the above error.
I looked at this discussion which talks about setting 'global permissions'; however on my vcenter server management VM, my 'administration' tab does not look anything like this:
What it instead looks like is this:
So apparently I have a 'vcenter server management' appliance and not what is referred to as the 'vsphere client'.
So with this context set, I have some questions:
Is the error above due to my trial license?
How is the 'vcenter server management (vcsa)' appliance different from the 'vsphere client'?
Is it possible to change 'global permissions' on the vcsa or do I need to get the 'vsphere client' to do that?
I tried adding the default port (443) as mentioned here to no avail. Keen to hear from you soon