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Unattended Deployment of vCloud Connector Server/Node Virtual Appliance

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VMware just released vCloud Connector 1.5 Server and Node which is distributed as a virtual appliance. Just like in previous post Unattended Deployment of vCenter Orchestrator Virtual Appliance here is how you can automate the deployment of vCloud Connector Server and vCloud Connector Node.

Here are the four ovf properties that are used to configure the network for vCloud Connector 1.5

  • vami.gateway.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server
  • vami.DNS.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server
  • vami.ip0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server
  • vami.netmask0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server

Here are the four ovf properties that are used to configure the network for vCloud Connector 1.5

  • vami.gateway.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node
  • vami.DNS.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node
  • vami.ip0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node
  • vami.netmask0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node

To see these properties before deploying, you can query using the ovftool which can help you identify the name of the ovf variables using the following command:

ovftool --hideEula vCCServer-1.5.0.0-515166_OVF10.ovf

Here is an example of the ovftool command to deploy vCC Server:

ovftool --acceptAllEulas --skipManifestCheck '--net:Network 1=VM_Network' --datastore=vesxi50-1-local-storage-1 --diskMode=thin --name=vcc-server --prop:vami.DNS.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server=172.30.0.100 --prop:vami.gateway.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server=172.30.0.1 --prop:vami.ip0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server=172.30.0.143 --prop:vami.netmask0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Server=255.255.255.0 vCCServer-1.5.0.0-515166_OVF10.ovf 'vi://root:*protected email*/?dns=vesxi50-1.primp-industries.com'

Here is an example of the ovftool command to deploy vCC Node:

ovftool --acceptAllEulas --skipManifestCheck '--net:Network 1=VM_Network' --datastore=vesxi50-1-local-storage-1 --diskMode=thin --name=vcc-node --prop:vami.DNS.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node=172.30.0.100 --prop:vami.gateway.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node=172.30.0.1 --prop:vami.ip0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node=172.30.0.144 --prop:vami.netmask0.VMware_vCloud_Connector_Node=255.255.255.0 vCCNode-1.5.0.0-515165_OVF10.ovf 'vi://root:*protected email*/?dns=vesxi50-1.primp-industries.com'

Of course, I wrote a simple shell script deployvCC.sh to help with the deployment. The script assumes you have ovftool installed and the OVF files located in the same directory as the script. You will need to edit the following variables if you wish to deploy vCC Server and/or Node:

Note: There are many ways of using the ovftool to deploy an OVF. In this simple example, it requires you to specify an ESX(i) host, but you can modify the locator to deploy to a VM folder or datacenter path. For more examples and options, please take a look at the ovftool documentation.

Here is an example of the script in action:

Once the vCC virtual appliance has been deployed, you can also have it automatically power on by specifying the following parameter --powerOn.

If everything was successful, you should now be able to point your browser to the hostname of your vCC Server/Node and you should taken to the vCC splash screen.

Happy vConnecting 🙂

Unattended Deployment of vCenter Orchestrator Virtual Appliance

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This weekend I spent sometime with the new vCenter Orchestrator virtual appliance in the ghetto lab. Instead of using the vSphere Client to deploy the OVF, I wanted to see if I could deploy it 100% from the command line using the ovftool. One of the cool things about OVF from an author perspective, is the ability to create custom variables which can then be specified during deployment to include guest customization, network or application configurations.

In the case of the new vCO virtual appliance, VMware provides the following four variables to customize the network configuration:

  • vami.DNS.vCO_Appliance
  • vami.gateway.vCO_Appliance
  • vami.ip0.vCO_Appliance
  • vami.netmask0.vCO_Appliance

Using the ovftool, you can specify the following variables to not only deploy the vCO OVF through the commandline but also configure the guestOS network without having to manually go through vSphere Client or remote console.

Here is an example of the ovftool command to deploy vCO:

/usr/bin/ovftool --acceptAllEulas --skipManifestCheck '--net:Network 1=VM_Network' --datastore=vesxi50-1-local-storage-1 --diskMode=thin --name=vco --prop:vami.DNS.vCO_Appliance=172.30.0.100 --prop:vami.gateway.vCO_Appliance=172.30.0.1 --prop:vami.ip0.vCO_Appliance=172.30.0.142 --prop:vami.netmask0.vCO_Appliance=255.255.255.0 vCO_VA-4.2.0.1-507352_OVF10.ovf 'vi://root:*protected email*/?dns=vesxi50-1.primp-industries.com'
Opening OVF source: vCO_VA-4.2.0.1-507352_OVF10.ovf

If the command looks a little daunting, it is really not and to make the deployment of vCO even simpler, I decided to write a small shell script called deployvCO.sh that users can use.

The script assumes you have ovftool installed and downloaded both the vCO OVF and system disk in the same working directory. You will need to edit a few variables within the script which specifies the vCenter and ESXi host to deploy to and resources for vCO appliance such as network portgroup, datastore, etc.

Note: There are many ways of using the ovftool to deploy an OVF. In this simple example, it requires you to specify an ESX(i) host, but you can modify the locator to deploy to a VM folder or datacenter path. For more examples and options, please take a look at the ovftool documentation.

Here is an example of the script in action:

Once the vCO virtual appliance has been deployed, you can also have it automatically power on by specifying the following parameter --powerOn.

If everything was successful, you should now be able to point your browser to the hostname of your vCO server and you should taken to the vCO splash screen.

Now you can easily deploy vCO without the need of the vSphere Client! Happy workflowing 🙂

How to Automate the Deployment & Configuration of vShield Manager 5

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If you have ever worked with VMware vShield Manager, you know that deployment and configuration of the virtual appliance is pretty much a manual process. You can automate the deployment of the vShield Manager OVA using the various vSphere SDK's or the ovftool, but the initial IP address configuration for vSM still needs to be configured manually using the remote console for the very first time.

An easy solution to this problem would be for VMware to create the vSM OVA to support IP address configuration out of the box as part of the deployment options (but why make things easy). In any case, I will demonstrate how you can easily automate both the deployment and the initial configuration of vShield Manager to your vSphere environment.

Before I begin, I can not take credit for coming up with the idea of automating vShield Manager deployment, the credit goes to Alan Renouf. Alan recently contacted me and ask if it was possible to automate the IP configuration. The answer is yes and here is a solution.

One of the main challenges in figuring out how to automate the IP address configuration of vShield Manager was due to the vtysh integrated shell daemon for Zebra that launches by default as part of the "admin" user account. This interface is used to manage the kernel routing and management table and made it very difficult to interface with for any type of automation. I decided manually go through a vSM configuration and then using Knoppix LIVE-CD, I was able to mount up the vSM filesystem and look around to get a better understanding of what was going on. After some investigating, it looks like IP address configuration is stored in /common/configs/cli/zebra.conf, here is an example of what the configuration looks like:

Armed with this knowledge, it was pretty straight forward in developing an automated way of deploying and configuring vShield Manager. I created a script called deployvShieldManager.sh which utilizes guestOpsManagement.pl, vCLI and ovftool. It's recommended that you use vMA and install ovftool to quickly get started. At a high level, the script is doing the following:

  1. Deploy vShield Manager OVA using ovftool
  2. PowerOn vSM and wait 2 minutes for VMware Tools to be ready on the system
  3. Create new zebra.conf, backup the old zebra.conf and upload new zebra.conf using the new vSphere 5 VIX integration
  4. PowerOff vSM to force the configurations to be read in upon next bootup
  5. PowerOn vSM and it is now ready for use

At the top of the script, there are several configuration variables that need to be edited by the user to specify the vSM configuration, including vCenter and ESX(i) host to deploy vSM.

Here is a list of variables that need to be configured at the top of the deployvShieldManager.sh script:

Once you are done updating the variables, you are now ready to execute the script. Before the script performs any changes, it will first prompt the summary of configurations you have specified in the script. Once you are satisfiy, you may than proceed by typing "y" or "yes" to start, or if you would like to cancel, type "n" or "no".

Note: The script will perform some basic validation such as existence of the vShield Manager OVA, ovftool, etc. else you will get an error message and the script will exit.

Next, the script will perform the deployment of vSM using ovftool and proceed with the configuration of vSM once it has been deployed.

Note: If it takes longer to poweron vSM in your environment to get it into a ready state, you may want to tweak the sleep period from 120 seconds (2minutes) to something longer.

At this point, you now should see a new vShield Manager VM deployed and if you take a look at the summary page, you should see the new IP address and hostname configurations.

Now all that is left is to point your browser to the vSM address and you should be prompted to login to vShield Manager management interface.

Instead of manually deploying vShield Manager in your environment, you can now automate the initial deployment and configuration for general use or with VMware vCloud Director. For further automation and configuration of vShield manager, once vSM is online and accessible, you can leverage the vShield REST API.