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How to Register a vCenter Server 5.0 with Admin Tool on VCSA 5.1 Using SSH Port Forwarding

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The new vSphere Web Client in vSphere 5.1 supports both vCenter Server 5.0 and 5.1, but before you can connect to a 5.0 system, you will need to manually register the vCenter Server with the vSphere Web Client Admin Tool. In the previous release, you could register a vCenter Server using the Admin Tool which was available by connecting to the localhost web application as outlined here or by performing the same operation via the command-line using /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/scripts/admin-cmd.sh on the VCSA.

It looks like with the latest release, the admin script no longer function ("Cannot connect to vSphere Web Client administration tool.") and since the VCSA does not contain a full blown desktop with a browser like it's ugly Windows cousin ... you will not be able to register any of your existing vCenter Server 5.0 systems. Luckily, you do not need a browser running on the VCSA to perform the registration, you can use the browser on your desktop by simply using SSH port forwarding.

In the example below, I am connecting to my VCSA 5.1 from my iMac via terminal. You will need a system that can reach your VCSA that has a web browser which will be used to access the Admin Tool.

Step 1 -  SSH to your VCSA using the following command, be sure to replace "172.30.0.194" with the IP Address or hostname of your VCSA:

ssh [email protected] -L 9443:127.0.0.1:9443 -N

If the port forward was established correctly, the prompt will just sit there as denoted by the screenshot below.

Note: If you wish for the prompt to return, you can specify the -f flag after "ssh" but this ensures you remember you have a port forwarded.

Step 2 - Open a web browser on your local desktop and connect to the following address:

https://localhost:9443/admin-app

This should launch the vSphere Web Client Admin Tool and allow you to register your vCenter Server 5.0 hosts.

Even though I was able to get this to work, I personally would still prefer to be able to perform this operation via the command-line. I am still hoping that I might have missed something, but I have been told this might be expected 🙁

Automating VCSA 5.1 (vCenter Server Appliance) Configurations

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If you have seen my previous article on Automating VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) 5.0, you will notice the existing script will not work on latest VCSA 5.1, without a minor tweak. The reason for this is due to the new vCenter SSO (Single Sign-On) configuration that is now part of the initial setup.

Note: If you would like to learn more about the new vCenter SSO, I would recommend you take a look at the What's New vCenter Server 5.1 whitepaper.

Luckily, the change is quite simple and in the example below, you will be configuring vCenter Server SSO to run in the embedded mode on the VCSA. I have also enhanced the script to include the joining of an Active Directory domain if you wish to have the VCSA backed by AD.

Disclaimer: This is for educational purposes only, this is not officially supported by VMware. Please test this in a development environment before using it on actual systems.

Here is a script with the minimal commands needed for running an embedded configuration:

#!/bin/bash

# User Configurations
JOIN_AD=0
AD_DOMAIN=primp-industries.com
AD_USER=administrator
AD_PASS=mysupersecurepassword
VCENTER_HOSTNAME=vcenter51-1.primp-industries.com

## DO NOT EDIT BEYOND HERE ##

echo "Accepting EULA ..."
/usr/sbin/vpxd_servicecfg eula accept

if [ ${JOIN_AD} -eq 1 ]; then
        echo "Configuring vCenter hostname ..."
        SHORTHOSTNAME=$(echo ${VCENTER_HOSTNAME} |  cut -d. -f1)
        /bin/hostname ${VCENTER_HOSTNAME}
        echo ${VCENTER_HOSTNAME} > /etc/HOSTNAME
        sed -i "s/localhost.localdom/${VCENTER_HOSTNAME}/g" /etc/hosts
        sed -i "s/localhost/${SHORTHOSTNAME}/g" /etc/hosts

        echo "Configuring Active Directory ..."
        /usr/sbin/vpxd_servicecfg ad write "${AD_USER}" "${AD_PASS}" ${AD_DOMAIN}
fi

echo "Configuring Embedded DB ..."
/usr/sbin/vpxd_servicecfg db write embedded

echo "Configuring SSO..."
/usr/sbin/vpxd_servicecfg sso write embedded

echo "Starting VCSA ..."
/usr/sbin/vpxd_servicecfg service start

Note: By default the script will not join an AD domain, you will need to change the JOIN_AD variable to 1 and ensure you specify all the Active Directory configurations including the FQDN of your vCenter Server as this is required for properly join your VCSA to your AD domain. If you choose to join an AD domain, make sure you have proper forward/reverse DNS configured on the VCSA and you will also need to reboot the VCSA for the changes to take effect.

To run the script remotely (you do not need to copy it to VCSA), use the following command:

# ssh root@[vcsa-ip] < configureVCSA.sh

You can now quickly deploy and configure your VCSA in just minutes versus spending 5-10 minutes clicking around and waiting for the web interface. Once you have tried this script, you will never go back to manually configuring the VCSA using the web interface!

Automating VMware Tools Upgrade Policy

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I received a question this week from a reader who was looking to change the VMware Tools upgrade policy for a few hundred virtual machines and wanted to know if it was possible to automate this. The answer is absolutely yes!

By default the VMware Tools upgrade policy is disabled and set to "manual" mode. If you want the vSphere platform to automatically check and upgrade VMware Tools upon a system power cycle, then you can enable it by going to Edit VM->Options->Tools->Check and upgrade Tools during power cycling.

To update this configuration, there is a property in the vSphere API called toolsUpgradePolicy which can accept two values: manual or upgradeAtPowerCycle.

Here is a vSphere SDK for Perl script updateVMToolsPolicy.pl that supports two types of operations: "list" and "update". The list operation will show you all VMs and their currently configured upgrade policy, by default they should be all manual unless you have changed it manually. The update operation will allow you to configure a list of VMs and policy you designate. This change can be done while the VM is running, you do not need to make any changes to the guestOS that is running.

Here is an example of the "list" operation:

If you want to take all the VMs that have "manual" policy and change them over to "upgradeAtPowerCycle", you can copy the output to a file and then use a find or UNIX/Linux grep command to search for entries that have the word "manual".

Here is the command you can use if you are on a UNIX/Linux system:

cat output | grep "manual" | awk -F '["|"]' '{print $2}'

Here is the command to get the first column which contains the VM display name:

cat output | grep "manual" | awk -F '["|"]' '{print $2}' > VMLIST

Lastly, you just need to take the previous command and redirect that to a file which will then be used in the "update" operation. You can also take the output and using an editor to get to the final output, use whatever you are comfortable with.

Here is an example of the commands listed above:

Now that we have the list of VMs we are interested in updating, we just need to select the policy and perform the "update" command. Here is an example:

So there you have it, you can now easily automate the the VMware Tools upgrade policy for any or all your VMs without having to edit each one manually.