I had one of our guys who's never logged on to the vcenter box, logon with his domain creds just fine. I'll go through the domain hoops after I reboot it one more time.
post reboot I see event id 1000's for each group that has permissions in vcenter in the app log (while logged on to the vcenter server with a domain account):
"
The description for Event ID 1000 from source VMware VirtualCenter Server cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.
If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.
The following information was included with the event:
The group account "DOMAIN\Group" could not be successfully resolved. Check network connectivity to domain controllers and domain membership. Users may not be able to log in until connectivity is restored.
the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table "
When I logon to vcenter as local admin and attempt to add a permission to vcenter I get:
Call "UserDirectory.RetrieveUserGroups" for object "UserDirectory" on vCenter Server "servername" failed.
This could be trying to do an AD lookup with local admin I guess.
OK I guess I'm going to have to do the domain thing now.. seems silly.