Exploring vSphere 6.7-Part-2-Installing and Configuring VCSA

In last post of this series we installed Esxi host and navigated around the HTML client to explor various options. In this post we will deploy VCSA host and will explore the new vSphere Client (HTML based).

Like Esxi host, installation of VCSA 6.7 has not much changed from previous version. Only the UI has become a slight better. I have outlined the steps in below slideshow.

Deploying VCSA

Once the Stage 1 of VCSA deployment completes, hit Continue to trigger the second stage of deployment to configure NTP settings and SSO domain configuration.

vc67-14.PNG

 

Once second stage of deployment is finished,  launch the HTML5 client (https://VCSA-FQDN/ui/) and login with administrator@SSO-domain and the password set during deployment.

vc67-23

vc67-24

Assign License

As soon as you login to VCSA UI, you will observe a warning about VCSA running in evaluation mode. Click on “Manage Your Licenses” to assign a new challange. 

vc67-25

Click on + button to add vcenter license key.

vc67-26

Punch in your key and hit Next.

vc67-27

Provide a label to the license key and finish the license add wizard.

vc67-28

Post adding the license key, navigate to Assets tab and select the vCenter server from the list and click on “Assign License”

vc67-29

Select the newly added license and hit OK to associate this license with the newly deployed VCSA.

vc67-30

Add VCSA to AD Domain

To enable VCSA for AD authentication, navigate to Configuration > Active Directory Domain and click on Join AD

vc67-31

Enter your AD details and credentials to authenticate against AD. Click on Join button.

Note: You need to reboot VCSA to complete the domain joining process.

vc67-32

Post reboot of appliance, make sure you see the AD information is populated.

vc67-33.PNG

Next is to add the newly added domain as Identity Source for VCSA. Navigate to Identity Sources tab amd click on “Add Identity Source

vc67-34

If you have windows based AD, select Active Directory (Windows Integrated) and select verify correct domain name is populated. Hit OK to continue.

vc67-35

Make the newly added identity source as default domain for VCSA.

vc67-36

Click on OK to acknowledge the warning about altering your current default domain.

vc67-37

If you have any super user which should have rights on everything within vCenter, add those user under global permission. Click on + button to add a new user.

vc67-38

Select the user and make sure Role is set to Administrator and propagate to children is selected. Hit OK to finish user add wizard.

vc67-39

If you want to change the default password policy and user account lockout policy, you can change them under configuration page as shown below.

vc67-40.PNG

vc67-41.PNG

Rest of the stuffs can be configured from Menu tab and we will cover them in next post of this series.

vc67-42

And that’s it for this post.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Feel free to share this on social media if it is worth sharing. Be sociable :)

Leave a Reply