OVFTool – Page 13

Ultimate automation guide to deploying VCSA 6.0 Part 1: Embedded Node

02.18.2015 by William Lam // 28 Comments

In this article, I will share alternative methods of deploying the new VCSA 6.0 using an Embedded Node configuration. Take a look at the various deployment methods below and their respective instructions for more details. If you are deploying using one of the scripts below, you will need to extract the contents of the VCSA ISO. If you are deploying to Workstation/Fusion, you will need to extract the VCSA ISO and add the .ova extension to the following file VMware-VCSA-all-6.0.0-2562643->vcsa->vmware-vcsa before deploying.

Disclaimer: Though these alternative deployment options work, they are however not officially supported by VMware. Please use at your own risk.

Deploying to an existing vCenter Server using ovftool (shell script)

I have created a shell script called deploy_vcsa6_embedded_to_vc.sh which requires using ovftool 4.1 (included in the VCSA ISO) to specify the appropriate OVF "guestinfo" properties for an Embedded configuration. You will need to edit the script and modify several variables based on your environment.

Here is an example of executing the script:

Deploying to an ESXi host using ovftool (shell script)

I have created a shell script called deploy_vcsa6_embedded_to_esxi.sh which requires using ovftool 4.0 or greater to specify the appropriate OVF "guestinfo" properties for an Embedded configuration. You will need to edit the script and modify several variables based on your environment. The behavior of this script is similar to the one above, except you are deploying directly to an ESXi host.

Deploying to an existing vCenter Server using ovftool (PowerCLI)

I have created a PowerCLI script called Deployment-Embedded.ps1 which also allows you to specify the appropriate OVF "guestinfo" properties for an Embedded configuration. You will need to edit the script and modify several variables based on your environment.

Deploying to VMware Fusion & Workstation

To properly deploy the new VCSA 6.0, the proper OVF properties MUST be set prior to the booting of the VM. Since VMware Fusion and Workstation do not support OVF properties, you will need to manually deploy the VCSA, but not power it on. Once the deployment has finished, you will need to add the following entries to the VCSA's VMX file and replace it with your environment settings. Once you have saved your changes, you can then power on the VM and the configurations will then be read into the VM for initial setup.

guestinfo.cis.deployment.node.type = "embedded"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.domain-name = "vghetto.local"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.site-name = "vghetto"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.password = "VMware1!"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr.family = "ipv4"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr = "192.168.1.54"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.pnid = "192.168.1.54"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.prefix = "24"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.mode = "static"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.dns.servers = "192.168.1.1"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.gateway = "192.168.1.1"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.root.passwd = "VMware1!"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.ssh.enabled = "true"

For more information, you can take a look at this article here.

Deploying using new scripted install (bonus)

As mentioned earlier, there is also a new scripted installer included inside of the VMware-VCSA ISO under /vcsa-cli-installer which supports Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, but must be connected directly to an ESXi host. There are several templates that are also included within the /vcsa-cli-installer/templates. I thought as a bonus I would also share the template I have been using to deploy an Embedded VCSA 6.0 using a static IP Address which some of you may find useful.

{
    "__comments":
    [
        "William Lam - www.virtuallyghetto.com",
        "Example VCSA 6.0 Embedded Deployment w/Static IP Address"
    ],

    "deployment":
    {
        "esx.hostname":"192.168.1.200",
        "esx.datastore":"mini-local-datastore-1",
        "esx.username":"root",
        "esx.password":"vmware123",
        "deployment.option":"tiny",
        "deployment.network":"VM Network",
        "appliance.name":"embedded-vcsa-node",
        "appliance.thin.disk.mode":true
    },

    "vcsa":
    {

        "system":
        {
            "root.password":"VMware1!",
            "ssh.enable":true,
            "ntp.servers":"0.pool.ntp.org"
        },

        "sso":
        {
            "password":"VMware1!",
            "domain-name":"vghetto.local",
            "site-name":"virtuallyGhetto"
        },

        "networking":
        {
            "ip.family":"ipv4",
            "mode":"static",
            "ip":"192.168.1.60",
            "prefix":"24",
            "gateway":"192.168.1.1",
            "dns.servers":"192.168.1.1",
            "system.name":"192.168.1.60"
        }
    }
}

The use the scripted installer, you just need to change into the appropriate OS platform directory (win32,mac or lin64) and there should be a binary called vcsa-deploy. To use this template, you just need to save the JSON to a file and then specify that as the first argument to vcsa-deploy utility.

Here is an example of deploying an Embedded VCSA using the vcsa-deploy scripted installer.

Ultimate automation guide to deploying VCSA 6.0 Part 0

02.09.2015 by William Lam // 8 Comments

With vSphere 6.0, there is a new deployment model for vCenter Server which is comprised of following two core components:

Platform Services Controller (PSC) Node - Provides VMware Infrastructure services such as vCenter Single Sign-On, vSphere Licensing and VMware Certificate Authority Management (VCMA)
vCenter Server Management Node - Provides vCenter Server Service, Inventory Service, vSphere Web Client, vPostgres DB, vSphere Syslog Collector, vSphere Auto Deploy, and vSphere Dump Collector Services

From these two components, there are three deployment types (also shown in the diagrams below):

Embedded Node - Both the Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server Management Node reside on a single system, this is true for both the Windows vCenter Server and the VCSA
External Platform Services Controller Node - You can deploy multiple PSC's and configure them with independent SSO Domains or have them all joined to a single SSO Domain, replicating between each other
vCenter Server Management Node - This requires that you have deployed an external PSC which the vCenter Server can point to

There are currently two supported methods of deploying the VCSA 6.0 Appliance which is using the new HTML based UI (Supported only on Windows) or a new scripted installer method (supports Windows, Mac & Linux). Both of these methods today require direct access to an ESXi host for deployment, which may not work for everyone. What if you want to deploy the new VCSA 6.0 using an existing vCenter Server or running it on top of VMware Fusion or Workstation? Luckily, I spent quite a bit of time going through all these "alternative" deployment methods and documenting the process so that you have a choice on how you would like to test and evaluate vSphere 6 and the new VCSA in your environment.

These alternative methods will be using the VCSA OVA which is actually included in the VCSA ISO. You will need to extract the contents of the VCSA ISO and you can find the OVA in the following path after extraction: VMware-VCSA-all-6.0.0-2562643->vcsa->vmware-vcsa where vmware-vcsa is the VCSA OVA file. Depending on the deployment method you are using, you may only need to just extract the contents of the ISO or possibly rename the vmware-vcsa with .ova extension to deploy. Please refer to the articles below for more details.

Disclaimer: Though these alternative deployment options work, they are however not officially supported by VMware. Please use at your own risk.

In the upcoming days, I will be sharing a 4-part blog series for automating the deployment of the new VCSA 6.0 with the following deployment options:

In each article, I will provide resources on how to deploy to an existing vCenter Server or directly to an ESXi host using ovftool via a shell script as well using PowerCLI, deploying to VMware Fusion and deploying to VMware Workstation. Stay tune for Part 1 ...

Automate Deployment & Configuration of vRealize Operations Manager 6.0 Part 1

12.10.2014 by William Lam // 1 Comment

Yesterday was a huge day for VMware's Management BU which released several updates to their product offerings within their vRealize Suite 6.x including some new products like the new vRealize Code Stream mentioned during this years VMware Europe Conference. Prior to GA, I had already received several Automation questions regarding the upcoming vRealize Operations Manager 6.0 (vROps). Luckily, I had a couple of days to play around with the new release before it was made public and I must to say, I am quite impressed at how easy and intuitive it is to deploy and configure the new vRealize Operations Manager 6.0.

To make it even easier for customers to evaluate the new release, I wanted to take a look at how you can easily automate both the deployment and configuration of the new vRealize Operations Manager. I have broken the process down into three parts: deployment using ovftool which will include both a non-Windows as well as a Windows solutions for my PowerCLI buddies, initial configuration using the command-line via a shell script and finally the same identical initial configuration but using the new vRealize Operations Manager Cluster Mgmt API (also known as the CaSA API which stands for Cluster and Slice Administration).

As mentioned already, this first article will focus on deploying the new vRealize Operations Manager OVA using ovftool. Previously, the vCOps VA was deployed as a vApp that contained two Virtual Machines. The new architecture provides a more dynamic approach and a new capability has been brought into the application that allows you to easily scale out the various vROps "roles" such as the Admin, UI, Data, Data Collector and Replica. This greatly simplifies the initial deployment which is always a plus in my book!

Disclaimer: These scripts are provided for informational and educational purposes only. It should be thoroughly tested before attempting to use in a production environment.

I have created a simple shell script called: deployvROps.sh and there are several variables that need to be edited based on your environment including the path to the OVA. Please take a look at the script prior to executing.

To execute the script, you simply just run the following:

./deployvROps.sh

You will be prompted to confirm the configurations you have specified before the OVA is deployed. If everything was successfully deployed, you should see your new vROps VM power up. Next, open a browser to either the IP Address or hostname of your vROps VM and you should see the following landing page as shown in the screenshot below. At this point, you have completed the deployment of vROps 6.0. As for next steps, you can either manually proceed to configure your new vROps instance or stay tune for Part 2 where I will demonstrate how you can easily automate the initial vROps configurations.

Note: There is a hidden OVF property called guestinfo.cis.appliance.ssh.enabled that will allow SSH to be enabled upon deployment. To be able to configure this property, you must add an advanced ovftool option called --X:enableHiddenProperties which the shell script already takes care of. Unfortunately, for PowerCLI's Get-OvfConfiguration cmdlet, these custom options have not been implemented and hence you will not be able to turn on SSH when using the PowerCLI method. I have already filed an FR internally for this and hopefully see this in a future release of PowerCLI.

Here is a Windows solution to deploying the vRealize Operations Manager called Deployment.ps1 using PowerCLI's Get-OvfConfiguration cmdlet and I have contributed a new sample to Alan Renouf's PowerCLI Deployment Repository. Before running the Deployment.ps1 script, you will also need to edit the variables in the script to match your environment.

Here is a screenshot using the Deployment.ps1 script:

Now that you have your new vRealize Operations Manager deployed, you can manually go through the guided wizard for the initial configuration or stay tune for Part 2 where I will demonstrate you how you can easily automate the initial vROps configurations using the command-line.