By default, the new VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 Installer will validate the ESXi management interface is at a 10GbE network adaptor and it will prevent users from proceeding if the minimum link speed is not detected.
This pre-check had also existed in VCF 5.x and users could bypass the pre-check, but it required users to deploy using the VCF Cloud Builder API which was not as nice when compared to using the VCF Cloud Builder UI.
While the default behavior is designed for production-grade environments, there is a much simpler way to disable this pre-check for lab purposes in VCF 9.0 and it would allow users to use either the VCF Installer UI or API!
Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by Broadcom, please use at your own risk
Step 1 - After successfully deploying the VCF Installer appliance, you will need to SSH to the system using the vcf username and the password that you had specified during the deployment.
Step 2 - Switch to the root user by running the following command:
su -
Step 3 - Append enable.speed.of.physical.nics.validation=false to /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties configuration file
Step 4 - Restart the VCF Installer services for the change to go into effect:
echo 'y' | /opt/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/scripts/cli/sddcmanager_restart_services.sh
Step 5 - Re-run the pre-check and you will find the 10GbE NIC pre-check is no longer performed
Thanks for the comment!