Automating vCloud Director 1.5 & Oracle DB Installation

Here is an update to my vCloud Director 1.0 & Oracle Express Database installation script to include support for the new vCloud Director 1.5. There were a few slight modification I had to make as the new installer had an additional question around the type of database to use and there were also some path changes that had to be handled for the new version of vCloud Director. I also added support for vCloud Director 1.0.1 and have functionally tested all three version of vCloud Director with the use of a local Oracle Express Database.

It is important to note, the script is merely to help users quickly get vCloud Director setup for testing and evaluational purposes. For actual production/development deployment, I would recommend you go through the actual installer and using a remote database versus a local embedded. This script only deals with vCloud Director, you will still need to manually setup things like vShield or other products that you wish to use with vCloud Director.

One question I have gotten quite a bit is about setting up the initial vCloud Director Linux virtual machine prior to running the vCloud Director application installation script. The following outlines the steps in building out a CentOS virtual machine using network based installation.

You will need to download the following:

• CentOS 64bit Netinstall ISO
• Oracle Express 10g or 11g
• vCloud Director 1.5
• vcd_setup.sh
• vcd.rsp

Step 1 - Create a new 64bit virtual machine

• Select "Custom" Configuration
• Name your vCD Virtual Machine
• Select Datastore
• Select Virtual Machine Version 7 or 8 depending on version of vSphere
• Select "Linux" and "Red hat Enterprise Linux 5 (64-bit)" as Guest Operating System type
• Select the number of vCPU to be configured
• Select the amount of vMem to be configured
• Select 2 vNICs for the Virtual Machine and configure both on the same network
• Select the SCSI Controller (used defaults)
• Create a new Virtual Disk and configure the size

Step 2 - Power On the blank virtual machine

Step 3 - Attach the CentOS-5.5-x86_64-netinstall.iso to the vCD virtual machine and press CTRL+ALT+INSERT to reboot the system

Step 4 - When you see the "boot" prompt, just hit enter or wait for it load

Step 5 - Select language of choice

Step 6 - Select keyboard type:

Step 7 - Select installation type "FTP"

Step 8 - Select "eth0" which will be used for the initial connection to go out to the internet to pull in the CentOS image

Step 9 - Select "Manual Configuration" for eth0

Step 10 - Assign the appropriate IP Address for eth0

Step 11 - Select an FTP mirror from here to perform network based installation, in this example, I'm using one from UCSB where FTP Site name is "ftp.cs.ucsb.edu" and the CentOS Directory is "mirrors/centos/5.5/os/x86_64"

Step 12 - If successful, it should start retrieving the image

Step 13 - Click "Next" to start the installation

Step 14 - Select "Yes" to create new partition

Step 14 - Click "Next" to continue

Step 15 - Click "Yes" to clear all partitions

Step 16 - Verify network configuration for eth0, leave eth1 as uncheck, this will be configured per the vCloud Director Installation Script

Step 17 - Configure your timezone

Step 18 - Configure your root password

Step 19 - Select "Server" installation type and click "Next"

Step 20 - Click "Next" to start the installation and you can now sit back and relax

Step 21 - Once the system has completed, you will need to click on "Reboot"

Step 22 - SSH to the system and run "ifconfig eth0" and "ifconfig eth1" and eth0 should be configured since you are able to login into it and eth1 should not be configured with anything

Step 23 - You need to upload the vCloud Directory binary, Oracle Express RPM and the vCD setup script and response file

Step 24 - You will need to edit the vcd.rsp to setup you wish to deploy, here is an example of deploying vCloud Director 1.5 using Oracle 11g database

Step 25 - Start installation of vCloud Director + Oracle Express database using vcd_setup.sh script

Note: For more details on what is going on during the installation, please take a look here

Step 26 - Assuming you followed the directions, in about 10-15minutes you should get a successful message on the installation of vCloud Director and now be able to point your browser to your vCD system