In this article, I will share alternative methods of deploying replicated Platform Services Controller Node (PSCs) using the VCSA 6.0 appliance. 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_replicated_psc_to_vc.sh which requires using ovftool 4.1 (included in the VCSA ISO) to specify the appropriate OVF "guestinfo" properties for a replicated PSC deployment. 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_replicated_psc_to_esxi.sh which requires using ovftool 4.0 or greater to specify the appropriate OVF "guestinfo" properties for a replicated PSC deployment. 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-PSC-Replication.ps1 which uses ovftool and specifies the appropriate OVF "guestinfo" properties for a replicated PSC deployment. 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 = "infrastructure"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.domain-name = "vghetto.local"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.site-name = "vghetto"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.password = "VMware1!"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.first-instance = "false"
guestinfo.cis.vmdir.replication-partner-hostname = "192.168.1.50"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr.family = "ipv4"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.addr = "192.168.1.63"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.pnid = "192.168.1.63"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.prefix = "24"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.mode = "static"
guestinfo.cis.appliance.net.dns.servers = "192.1681.1"
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 supported 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 replicated PSC instances using a static IP Address which some of you may find useful.

{
    "__comments":
    [
        "William Lam - www.virtuallyghetto.com",
        "Example VCSA 6.0 Replicated Platform Service Controller Node 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.network":"VM Network",
        "deployment.option":"infrastructure",
        "appliance.name":"psc-02",
        "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",
            "first-instance":false,
            "replication-partner-hostname":"192.168.1.50"
        },

        "networking":
        {
            "ip.family":"ipv4",
            "mode":"static",
            "ip":"192.168.1.51",
            "prefix":"24",
            "gateway":"192.168.1.1",
            "dns.servers":"192.168.1.1",
            "system.name":"192.168.1.51"
        }
    }
}

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 a PSC using the vcsa-deploy scripted installer.

• Part 0: Introduction
• Part 1: Embedded Node
• Part 2: Platform Services Controller Node
• Part 3: Replicated Platform Services Controller Node
• Part 4: vCenter Server Management Node