I have been working on a script to deploy environments on a regular basis in my homelab. While I have made great progress I have not been able to get this completed due to the lack of time. It did up my powershell script writing skills.
A while ago I followed a webinar about VMware Cloud Foundation Lab Constructor (VLC in short). This will deploy a VCF environment in a decent amount of time. With little effort I have been able to get this up and running multiple times. There are some pitfalls I ran into. My goal is to get to learn more about VCF, NSX-T and K8s all in a VMware Validated Design (VVD) setup.
You can get access too by completing the registration form at tiny.cc/getVLC.
The following files are included in the download:
Example_DNS_Entries.txt
VCF Lab Constructor Install Guide 39.pdf
VLCGui.ps1
add_3_hosts.json
add_3_hosts_bulk_commission VSAN.json
default-vcf-ems.json
default_mgmt_hosthw.json
maradns-2.0.16-1.x86_64.rpm
mkisofs.exe
plink.exe
As I already have a DNS infrastructure in place I used ‘Example_DNS_Entries.txt‘ as a reference to create all the necessary DNS entries.
Read the documentation pdf FIRST. It will give you a good insight in what will be set up, won’t be set up and how everything will be set up. I’m not planning to repeat info that is included in the documentation. The only thing that I have copied from this pdf is the disclaimer because I feel it is important:
Below I have included the various configuration files and split them to show the different parts and also show where I deferred from the default. There are the configuration files that the VLC script will use:
Management domain:
default-vcf-ems.json → changed all ip addresses, gateways, hostnames, networks and licenses
default_mgmt_hosthw.json → changed the amount of CPUs (8 → 12), the amount of RAM (32 and 64 → 80) and the disk sizes(50,150 and 175 → 150)
Workload domain
add_3_hosts.json → changed the hostname, management IP and IP gateway
To deploy VCF and be able to deploy NSX-T you will need a good amount of resources. The mimimum of host resources to be able to deploy NSX-T is 12vCPUs (There is a workaround to lower the vCPU requirements for NSX-T) and 80GB of RAM due to the NSX-T requirements.
The configuration files
The first file is the ‘default_mgmt_hosthw.json’. This file describes the specs for the (virtual) hardware for the management domain hosts:
default management host hardware json
The second file is the ‘default-vcf-ems.json’. This file describes the configuration for all software components for the management domain:
default VCF EMS JSON
The last configuration file is ‘add_3_hosts.json’. This configuration file is optional and can be used to prepare three extra hosts for the first workload domain:
Add 3 host JSON
Where did I change the defaults
There are some settings that I changed from the defaults aside from changing the names and network settings:
in the ‘default_mgmt_hosthw.json’ I have changed the CPU to 12 to be able to deploy NSX-T
in the ‘default_mgmt_hosthw.json’ I have changed the RAM 80 to be able to deploy NSX-T
How do we start
If you are meeting the prerequirements it is fairly simple. Fire up the ‘VLCGui.ps1’. This will present the following gui which will give the ability to supply all the necessary information and to connect to your physical environment. It speaks for itself, just make sure the Cluster, Network Name and Datastore field are higlighted blue like the following.
What’s next
I hope to expand this inital post with a couple of follow-up posts. These are the topics that I’m currently thinking about:
Whilst upgrading the home lab I also decided to rebuild from scratch. There were some challenges to overcome because I have running VMs I don’t want to shut while migrating.
My current home lab setup and the go to setup is documented here (work in progress). Basically it comes down to:
Original setup: three hosts backed with iSCSI storage for running the VMs
Temporary setup:
New vCenter with two of the three hosts configured for vSAN with connection to the iSCSI datastores
Old vCenter with one remaining host running all of the VMs
Destination setup: new vCenter with vSAN datastore
To migrate the virtual machines from the old environment (from the last remaining host to the two new hosts) I decided to take a look at the ‘Cross vCenter vMotion Utility‘. There is not a lot of documentation available at first sight but it is straightforward to set up and configure. Although I did find some things that are worth noting.
Step 1 : Running the jar
To start the Cross vCenter vMotion Utility one must run a jar file: ‘java -jar xvm-2.6.jar’.
I am running linux (Pop!_OS 18.04) as my OS. I have java version 8 and 11 installed with version 11 as default. Version 11 is not listed on the fling site as supported (Java Runtime Environment 1.8-10: See requirements). Running with version 11 (sudo java -jar xvm-2.6.jar) starts the local website on port 8080 (http://localhost:8080) but does not report back on the CLI.
Under the assumption that the java application started and failed right away, I decided to run it on my windows box which has Java Runtime environment 8 installed. The last line of feedback ‘Initialized controller with empty state’ was the same as on my linux machine. Navigating to localhost:8080 showed the Cross vCenter vMotion Utility web interface. I could now configure the application and run migrations.
It is only later when I closed the running instance on my linux box and restarting it that it showed me output on the CLI that the application started successfully.
Shell
1
2
ps-df|grep-ijava
kill-HUP9159
Output after restart:
Step 2 : Configuration
Register connections
Source vCenter
Destination vCenter
Step 3 : Migration
Add migrations
Source Site: source vCenter
Target Site: destination vCenter
Source Datacenter
Virtual Machine(s): Select one or more virtual machines
Placement Target: Cluster or Host
Target Datastore
Network Mapping(s): the utility will detect the source networks for all selected virtual machines and display a selection field for the target network
Issues
Storage vMotion?
Storage vMotion does not seem to be supported. I tried to svMotion my machines from their iSCSI based datastores to the newly created vSAN datastore but it failed.
Target Datastore: Shared datastore (same as source)
Choosing ‘Shared datastore (same as source)’ as Target Datastore fails and throws the following error:
I added the destination host and tried again but it also failed with several issues:
destination networks were not listed, only a subset were – although all were added to the distributed vSwitch
matching datastore was not found on the destination host
I could migrate to the new environment but had to select a destination datastore. This posed not much of a problem in my environment because the end goal was to get the virtual machine on the vSAN datastore.
After migrating most of the virtual machines, only two types of virtual machines were left, it felt like I could take a step back if needed. The following types were left to migrate, the vCenter VMs and the firewall VMs. The old vCenter is not needed anymore, the new vCenter and the firewall VMs are and once those are migrated I can go break down the last part of the old setup. The last host will be reset to default settings via the DCUI after which it can be added to the vSAN cluster and I can make the vSAN cluster setup complete. A tmp_vSAN_policy with no redundancy is not the way you (or me) want to run your environment, even if it is a lab environment.
Conclusion
I could not migrate from the old environment to the new environment while also doing a Storage vMotion, I needed to go in steps.
Nevertheless I’m happy to have used the Cross vCenter vMotion Utility. It did save me a lot of work, required little setup and configuration. I didn’t need to change anything to the setup of my old nor my new environment.
Well it is already more than a decade ago since I visited my first VMUGBE. I have seen the event grow from 15 visitors to more than 200. The last couple of years it is hosted in the LAMOT event center in Mechelen which is a superb venue. Ever since the first time I only missed a couple due to other obligations but when I attended I took home a lot of info, knowledge and new visions. Going to VMUGBE throughout the years have made me grow due to the sessions and the peers available.
A couple of years ago I met @kim_bottu who engaged me in becoming a #vExpert. Now two years in a row I am awarded being part of this vExpert community and VMUGBE facilitated this in a way. A lot of the Belgian vExperts come year after year and are very open people ready to chat.
These are a couple of the vExperts that will be attending this year:
Erik Schils
Stijn Depril
Tom Vallons
Maarten Van Driessen
Frederiek Van Hoornick
Luc Dekens
Jose Cavalheri
Maarten Caus
Niels Engelen
Alain Geenrits
Jurgen Van de Perre
Wouter Kursten
Hans Kraaijeveld
Johan Van Amersfoort
Harold Preyers
and …
Why should you attend?
It is a FREE #vCommunity networking event with top speakers. There is top relevant content available from CNA to Horizon View and VMware Cloud on AWS to VMware Blockchain and IOT. It is all VMware related and there is some marketing stuff yes (which make the event FREE) but most is community driven and real world examples.
There are 16 sessions in total, 3 parallel tracks with 4 sessions in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. There will be a small breakfast, a free lunch, a free BBQ and a chance to win a smartphone.
What sessions am I looking forward to?
Maarten Van Driessen (@mvandriessen) will share his knowledge from the field about VVOLS. I have never worked with VVOLS so I’m curious. My lab has Synology based storage and sadly Synology does not support VVOLS. I’m personally looking forward to this session.
Our very own Luc Dekens (@lucd) will tell you about PowerCLI. Even if you know everything about PowerCLI this is a session to attend. I have been at several Luc his sessions and for me these gave me new insights about challenges I had.
Johan van Amersfoort (@vhojan) is an easy to listen to speaker which has his session right after lunch. He will tell about a project where they used the VDI infrastructure to do a whole other thing during the nighttime. Don’t miss out on this session. I have missed this session twice so I will be now. Third time is a charm.
Last but not least the #vExpert Community session led by Stijn Depril (@sdepril). This sessions is one of the last sessions and will try to highlight why you should become a #vExpert. I will be on the #vExpert panel during this session so if you want to see me sweat (it is my first public speaking session) you should attend this session. We will share a lot of personal views and insights during this session.
I could go highlight a lot more sessions but that content is all available on https://www.vmug.be/
Key takeaways and tips:
Be there on time as the opening keynote speaker is Joe Baguley (@joebaguley) from VMware and last year it was a cool story to hear.
If you are attending, take the time to come to speak to me. I still am a shy guy.
Step out of your comfort zone, take your lunch to a table and start to chat.
Knowledge is about sharing.
Thanks
I want to thank @erikschils for all his efforts in organising the VMUGBE all these years.
I also want to thank those who have attended the previous VMUGBE events and those who will be attending this year. You are the ones that make these events a success.
The Horizon Client installer generates the following errors for Multimedia Redirection:
Adding the following symlinks made the failure message go away. I’m wondering though if the packages get updated in the repositories whether this will break the Multimedia Redirection (MMR). I guess I’ll notice some day.
Update (2019/12/20): Today I updated from version 5.2 to 5.3 and ran into the same issue again. I noticed that there are symbolic links present but that they linked to the old versions. After updating the symbolic links the installer was happy again.
The following powershell snippet is going to unconfigure the diagnostic coredump partition using the esxcli version 2 cmdlet. The second part will reconfigure the diagnostic partition with the ‘smart’ option so that an accessible partition is chosen.
