With the announcement of VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, I know many of you are eager to start planning for 9.1 and get it into your lab environment for hands-on experience as the first step toward pre-production validation.
Unless you are among the few with adequate resources, including servers listed on the Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG), most lab environments are resource constrained in one way or another.
To help expedite your 9.1 deployment for non-production usage, I have documented the various VCF Installer and SDDC Manager configuration workarounds that can used for lab deployments, especially for functional testing and/or for educational purpose.
I will continue to update this page with new information, so be sure to bookmark for your single reference!
Enable HTTP Offline Depot Support
There is a new method for enabling HTTP support for VCF Offline Depot that no longer requires basic authentication. Please see the reference blog post for more details on the prior workaround as well as the officially supported method for using HTTP.
Enable Single or Dual ESX Host Deployment
If you have sufficient host resources (compute and storage), you can deploy a complete VCF fleet (non-nested) on one, two, or three ESX hosts
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | feature.vcf.vgl-29121.single.host.domain = true |
| SDDC Manager | feature.vcf.vgl-29121.single.host.domain = true |
| Configuration File | /home/vcf/feature.properties |
| Restart Command | echo 'y' | /opt/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/scripts/cli/sddcmanager_restart_services.sh |
Disable 10GbE pNIC Check
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | enable.speed.of.physical.nics.validation = false |
| SDDC Manager | enable.speed.of.physical.nics.validation = false |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
| SDDC Manager | enable.speed.of.physical.nics.validation = false |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/application-prod.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart operationsmanager |
Disable vSAN ESA HCL Check
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | feature.vcf.vgl-43370.vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim = true |
| SDDC Manager | feature.vcf.vgl-43370.vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim = true |
| Configuration File | /home/vcf/feature.properties |
| Restart Command | echo 'y' | /opt/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/scripts/cli/sddcmanager_restart_services.sh |
| VCF Installer | vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim = true |
| SDDC Manager | vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim = true |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
| SDDC Manager | vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim = true |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/application-prod.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart operationsmanager |
Disable vMotion Connectivity Check
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | validation.disable.vmotion.connectivity.check = true |
| VCF Installer | validation.disable.vmotion.l3.gateway.connectivity.check = true |
| SDDC Manager | validation.disable.vmotion.connectivity.check = true |
| SDDC Manager | validation.disable.vmotion.l3.gateway.connectivity.check = true |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Disable vSAN Connectivity Check
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | validation.disable.vsan.connectivity.check = true |
| SDDC Manager | validation.disable.vsan.connectivity.check = true |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Disable ESX Tunnel Endpoint (TEP) MTU Check
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | validation.disable.network.connectivity.check = true |
| VCF Installer | nsxt.mtu.validation.skip = true |
| SDDC Manager | validation.disable.network.connectivity.check = true |
| SDDC Manager | nsxt.mtu.validation.skip = true |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Single ESX Host Deployment using NFS Principal Storage
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | validation.disable.nfs.configuration.connectivity.check = true |
| SDDC Manager | validation.disable.nfs.configuration.connectivity.check = true |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Single Node VMware AVI Load Balancer Deployment
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| SDDC Manager | feature.vcf.vgl-41078.alb.single.node.cluster = true |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | echo 'y' | /opt/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/scripts/cli/sddcmanager_restart_services.sh |
Increase VCF General Deployment Retry
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | orchestrator.task.retry.max = 5 |
| SDDC Manager | orchestrator.task.retry.max = 5 |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Increase NSX Manager Deployment Timeout
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | nsxt.manager.wait.minutes = 180 |
| SDDC Manager | nsxt.manager.wait.minutes = 180 |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Increase NSX Edge Deployment Timeout
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | edge.node.vm.creation.max.wait.minutes = 90 |
| SDDC Manager | edge.node.vm.creation.max.wait.minutes = 90 |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Increase VCF Management Services Deployment Timeout
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | vsp.bootstrap.task.timeout.minutes = 240 |
| VCF Installer | vsp.bootstrap.command.timeout.minutes=200 |
| SDDC Manager | vsp.bootstrap.task.timeout.minutes = 240 |
| SDDC Manager | vsp.bootstrap.command.timeout.minutes=200 |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Increase VMware Avi Load Balancer Deployment Timeout
| Component | Configuration |
|---|---|
| VCF Installer | nsxt.alb.image.upload.retry.check.interval.seconds = 90 |
| SDDC Manager | nsxt.alb.image.upload.retry.check.interval.seconds = 90 |
| Configuration File | /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties |
| Restart Command | systemctl restart domainmanager |
Thank you for everything you've done for VMWare community!
Time for me to say goodbye as we have exiting the Broadcom-Extortion version of VMWare permanently.
Kudos!
I tries to add dell R740xd to AI workload. I put all above line on sddc vm.
I am still getting error " Failed to validate vSAN HCL status."
I could complete to deploy management workload with above line.
Are you sure you applied BOTH required configuration as noted in blog?
feature.vcf.vgl-43370.vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim = true
vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim = true
Hello William
I did all configure for VCF installer and SDDC vm. I may try to use your Nest Hardware VIB. This VIB was working in Beta. But it did not work on GA.
Dear William,
After I installed nested-vsan-esa-mock-hw.vib, I could add R740 to SDDC.
But this files did not work on VCF deployment
I got the same error when commissioning hosts “Failed to validate vSAN HCL status.” While reading your previous blog post “https://williamlam.com/2025/09/enhancement-in-vcf-9-0-1-to-bypass-vsan-esa-hcl-host-commission-10gbe-nic-check.html”, I noticed one step seems to be missing in this one. In this blog you only mentioned adding the "vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim=true" to the "/etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties", but you didn’t mention adding it to the "/etc/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/application-prod.properties" file.
Were you able to get past the issue after adding entry to operationsmanager?
yes the issue got resolved by adding the entry to the operationsmanager file
Perfect! I've just updated the blog post, appreciate the verification
Are any of these things options you can add to a .json file? So you can rapidly nuke an entire setup and just deploy a fresh VCF Installer and upload a common .json file? Or do you always have to edit the files directly on the VCF Installer?
Hi,
Is the "Single or Dual ESX Host Deployment" workaround applicable also for converging existing vsphere 8 deployment into VCF mgmt domain (for purposes of upgrading to VCF 9)?
Is there a workaround (for the same scenario) to skip the requirement to have 3 node NSX manager nodes?
Thank you!
You're not required to have 3 NSX Manager, you can decide whether you want "Simple" or "HA" VCF Deployment and the number of nodes will either be 1 or 3. If you want to control it further, meaning specific combinations, which was possible even with VCF 9.0, you can override with JSON. See https://williamlam.com/2025/10/flexible-combinations-with-vcf-fleet-deployment-models.html
Yes for new deployments, but for converging existing vcenter 8 + NSX 4.2, it requires 3 nodes (even though I haven't seen that requirement documented anywhere)
Converge via the VCF Installer UI will default to 3-Node, however you can override that behavior by using JSON. Easiest method would be to proceed w/o deploying and right before you click next, simply export and then remove the other 2 x NSX Manager Nodes from JSON array and then restart deployment UI, but just input your JSON and you can end up with single NSX node 🙂
Thanks, but I'm not deploying anything new at this point, i am just converging existing single node NSX (along with other components) "into" the new mgmt domain and the precheck fails because it says I must have 3 nodes.
Understood, this is Convert/Converge where you're using your existing deployment. How did you get to the Single Node, is the source a 9.0 deployment since anything earlier, you had to have deployed 3 x NSX Manager.
What is your principal storage for this convert use case? In speaking with some folks internally, if you're using vSAN, it looks like that might be driving the 3 node check but if you're using external storage, then using JSON API, it should allow for single node
It is an existing non-VCF environment (but has all the components - vcenter 8, NSX 4, vrops 8, vrli 8, vrni 8, vra 8) where 1 node NSX was always supported. Otherwise there would be no need to converge anything. It has both vSAN and external storage. It is not complaining about the number of hosts (it is a 3 node ESXi cluster), but all the appliances on it are single node.
Im trying to deploy my LAB using the VCF-SDDC-Manager-Appliance-9.1.0.0100.25428926.ova appliance.
VSAN and vMotion validation is failing. I have manually tested VSAN / vMotion successfully in the environment.
I have added the below to /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties but i can bypass the vaildation.
Disable vSAN Connectivity Check
validation.disable.vsan.connectivity.check = true
Disable vMotion Connectivity Check
validation.disable.vmotion.connectivity.check = true
validation.disable.vmotion.l3.gateway.connectivity.check = true
Typo: i can't bypass the validation.
Is there any way to reduce the number of vCPUs required for the Kubernetes nodes which make up the Management Services cluster? My deployment was going fine until it tried to power on a 12 CPU worker node on an 8 CPU-core node, but I managed to resize them on the fly (down to 8) and it continued a lot further. However when the various Fleet Lifecycle processes start to install I think it runs out of juice and Kubernetes won’t allow all of the pods to start up - stuck on Telemetry. 3 x Intel NUC 64GB RAM 8 core CPU.
I am probably going to rebuild with VVF, as the hardware just isn’t going to float with VCF 9.1. I was actually able to get VCF 9.0.1 running on the same kit but I think the additional management cluster is sadly a bridge too far.
JFYI - VVF includes VCFMS, while it only deploys 1 x CP + 2 x WK as it doesn't require the other components from VCF, it will expand to 3 x WK if you enable Log Management (same CPU/Memory for each node as VCF)