VPSMATE

I am going to do a couple of blogposts with “basic” workflows using the Web Client. Let me know if you find this useful or not… I will start with deploying the vCenter Server appliance and will assume you all know how to install ESXi. I prefer using the vCenter Server appliance in my lab as I can deploy it in minutes without the need to pre-install an OS etc.

The following steps outline the import process of the vCenter Server appliance.

• Open the vSphere Client
• Click “File – Deploy OVF Template”
• Browse for the OVA file
• Provide a name for the to be imported virtual machine, in our case “vCenter-01”
• Select a datastore where this virtual machine should be stored
• Use the default Disk Format
• Provide the networking details like IP address, DNS, netmask etc.
• Finish the wizard

During the reinstallation of my lab environment I ran in to this issue a couple of times. In my environment when I deploy the vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (VCVA) I always got the following error on the remote console:

No Networking Detected

This seems to happen when I point my vSphere Client directly to a host and import the OVA. When you point your vSphere Client directly at a host you do not have the option to fill out the networking details in the OVF wizard. (At least I don’t…) When I point my vSphere Client to a vCenter Server and import the OVA I get the option to fill out the networking details.

Log in to the VMware vCenter Server Appliance Web console to access VMware vCenter Server Appliance configuration settings.

Note

If your current VMware vCenter Server Appliance login session expires, you can reset the default timeout by editing the

/etc/vmware-vpx/vami_timeout.cfg configuration parameter. Then restart the session with the following command:

/etc/init.d/vami-sfcb .

Prerequisites

Install the VMware vCenter Server Appliance. See the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.

Procedure

Go to the configuration address that your VMware vCenter Server Appliance virtual machine provides: https://VMware vCenter Server Appliance IP address:5480.

Type your user name and password, and click Login.

The initial default user name is root, and the default password is vmware.

You can configure networking fairly simple. Just login to the console and type the following:

/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net

Make sure to fill out the following sections:

2) Default Gateway
3) Hostname
4) DNS
6) IP Address Allocation for eth0

After this has been done type 1 to exit the configuration tool. Now the VCVA should be configured. In some cases I noticed that the “default gateway” setting did not stick. I would suggest validating this on the network tab of your management console, which can be found here: https://<IP address or DNS name of your vCenter instance>:5480.

Now that you have successfully deployed the vCenter Server appliance you can start exploring the new vCenter Web Client: https://<IP address or DNS name of your vCenter instance>:9443/vsphere-client/