Auto Deploy Configuration in vSphere 6

Auto deploy is used for PXE booting/installation of Esxi over the network. When a host is deployed using Auto Deploy the state information is loaded to memory upon boot, the state is not permanently stored on the physical host by default.

We can use Host Profiles with Auto Deploy to customize your ESXi host state. Also from Esxi host advanced configuration menu, we can configure host for stateless or stateful booting.

In this post we will learn how to configure auto deploy and use it to provision Esxi hosts. Configuring Auto Deploy is a 3 step process which includes:

1: Enabling Auto Deploy in vCenter/vCSA.

2: Configuring DHCP and TFTP

3: Creating Auto Deploy rules using PowerCLI

Lets walk through each section one by one.

Enabling Auto Deploy in vCenter/vCSA

In my lab I am using windows based vCenter installation. Steps for enabling auto deploy are pretty much same for vCSA deployments as well.Read More

Automating Esxi Deployment Using PXE Boot and Kickstart

I have read long back about numerous posts on unattended Esxi installation but never tried it in my lab. Recently I started preparing for VCAP exam and there again mention of scripted install was there and it motivated me to finally try this in lab.

My first interaction with kickstart was 3 years back where in my previous organization our kickstart server died (running on really old hardware), but fortunately we had backup of the server and my boss handed over a task to me to build the server from scratch.

That was the time when I was so amazed by this wonderful piece of software and once I got the server up and running back in production, I setup an identical instance on my local system to play around options and enhance the pre/post installations script.

Like any other OS, ESXi can also be automatically deployed via PXE. PXE is a way to boot an operating system over the network using Ethernet card (PXE must be supported by the NIC card present in server and by the BIOS).Read More

Replacing vSphere 6 Solution user certificates with CA signed certificates

In our last post Replacing Esxi 6 SSL Certificates we learned how to replace Esxi host default certificates with CA signed certificates. In this post we will learn how to replace vSphere 6 solution user certificates with customer certificates signed by CA.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, then you can read them from below links

1: Setup CA Server for vSphere Lab

2: Set Up Automatic Certificate Enrollment

3: Request Internal Certificate from CA Server

4: Everything You Should Know About Certificate Management in vSphere 6

5: Replacing vSphere 6 SSL Certificates

6: Replacing Esxi 6 SSL Certificates

Solution Users use SSL Certificates for internal communication and endpoint registration in vSphere 6. For vCenter with embedded PSC, there are four Solution User Certificates:

  • machine
  • vpxd
  • vpxd-extension
  • vsphere-webclient

We will be replacing certificates for all the solution user in this post.

Follow below steps to replace the solution user certificates:

1: Creating Certificate Signing Request

Launch the certificate manager utility

Press 5 to select “Replace solution user certificates with custom certificates”

Provide password of SSO account

Select option 1 “Generate Certificate signing Request(s) and key(s) for solution user certificates”

sol-1

Provide path to directory where you want to store the .csr… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 10-Configuring vSphere Update Manager

In last post of this series we learnt how to install VUM and discussed why we need VUM and how it can simplify the update and upgrades in a large infrastructure and thus make life of a VMware admin easy.

In this post we will see how to configure various settings in VUM and how to create baselines and attach the baselines to host/cluster and then how to remediate hosts.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

9: Installing vSphere Update Manager

Configuring VUM is fairly easy task and there are not much settings involved in it.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 9-Installing vSphere Update Manager

In last post of this series we have seen how to add Esxi hosts to domain and how to configure Esxi host to reach iSCSI storage.

In this post we will learn how to install and configure vSphere Update Manager.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

8: Configuring Esxi host

Why you need VUM?

You can ask this question to yourself that do you really need VUM in your environment especially while working in Lab environment. I would say yes. May be you are not looking for any upgrade related tasks in your lab but it is always a good idea to have hands on how VUM operates.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 8-Configuring Esxi Hosts Settings

In last post of this series we have seen how to create and configure  dvswitch and portgroups on dvswitch and how to migrate networking from Standard switch to dvSwitch.

In this post we will see how to configure basic esxi host settings.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

Let’s get started with some basic configuration tasks on the Esxi host.

Adding Esxi hosts to Domain

It’s always a good idea to add Esxi hosts to your corporate domain. Adding Esxi hosts to domain allow you to push specific configurations and security settings from your Domain Controller. Also it can help you track which user has done what activity on esxi hosts (in case Esxi host is disconnected from vCenter and user needs to connect to host directly)

Connect to vCenter server Web-Client and select the Esxi host.  … Read More

vSphere-6:Part 7-Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

In last post of this series we have seen how to configure and install licenses for vCenter Server and Esxi hosts. Also we have performed some basic tasks like creating Datacenter/Cluster and adding hosts to cluster.

In this post we will see how to configure networking in vCenter Server.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

This post will be revolving around dvSwitch and associated components so that we can take benefits of some advanced features provided by dvSwitch.

If you are a newbie to VMware then I would recommend going with standard switches in beginning and playing around options to gain clarity on how virtual networking works and what are the differences between while working with physical networks and then with virtual networks in VMware vSphere.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 6-vCenter Server Basic Configuration

In last 2 post of this series we learnt how to install vCenter Server 6 on Server 2012 and how to enable AD authentication for SSO so that your domain users can login to vCenter server and manage it.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

In this post we will touch down on basic tasks that needs to configure vCenter before we can start using it in Lab/Production. Steps included in this post are typically for Lab environment and you might need to perform some additional tasks before your prod vCenter goes live.

Let’s talk less in this post and dive directly into configuring vCenter server.

1: Configuring Licenses for vCenter and Esxi hosts

Installing vCenter Server and Esxi host license is something which I love to do as soon as I complete installation process.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 5-Adding AD Authentication in vCenter Server

In last post of this series we learnt how to install vCenter Server 6 on Server 2012. I am new to vSphere 6 so at beginning I had kept things simple and installed vCenter and PSC on a single machine (embedded mode) and also used embedded vPostgres database.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

Earlier vCenter Server was holding the SSO component, but in vSphere 6 it is included as part of PSC. The Platform Services Controller contains the shared services that support vCenter Server and vCenter Server components.

In this post we will learn how to configure AD authentication in vCenter Server 6.0.

The vCenter SSO authentication service makes the VMware infrastructure more secure by allowing the various vSphere software components to communicate with each other through a secure token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring each component to
authenticate a user separately with a directory service like Active Directory.… Read More

vSphere-6:Part 4-Install vCenter Server 6

In last post of this series we had learnt how to install Esxi server 6 and we found installation of Esxi 6 hypervisor has not changed much and it is pretty much same as like previous version.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

In this post I’m going to walk you through the installation of VMware vCenter Server 6.0. The way vCenter server was installed in past has now changed big times. Earlier we had a choice to install SSO, Inventory Service, vCenter Server and Web-Client all on same machine or have a distributed architecture where all components were spread across multiple servers.

With vSphere 6.0 VMware introduced concept of PSC. Now we have only 2 nodes in vCenter deployment.… Read More