vSphere 5.5 - Part

vSphere 5.5 - Part 1 - ESXi Server 5.5 (inc U1) Install

1. Check the server hardware you are installing ESXi 5.5 onto is supported and on the VMware HCL.

 2. Login to the VMware license portal to check/upgrade/buy your vSphere licenses.

 3. Read the ESXi Setup Guide to ensure you understand the pre-requisites.

 4. Download the VMware ESXi 5.5 U1 ISO file from the VMware download area.

5. Burn the ESXi 5.5 ISO to a CD.

6. Disconnect all Fibre Channel connections (if any) and boot the server from the CD.

 7. Boot the server from the CD and Select "ESXi-5.5.0-20140302001-Standard-Installer"

 8. When ready to install press "Enter"

 9. Read and accept the license agreement, press F11 to accept.

 10. Select the correct storage device to install ESXi on and press "Enter"

NOTE: Ensure it is not a fibre channel (FC) VMFS datastore or RDM! Make sure your fibre cables or disconnected or zoning excludes this host during the install/upgrade.

There is a tendency for local storage devices to show as remote (as in the case below). If this happens ensure it is local storage and not a fibre channel LUN.

 11. Select the keyboard layout and press Enter.

 12. Enter a secure password for the "root" account, store it in a safe place and Press Enter.

 13. Press F11 to start installing ESXi.

 Note: The install doesn't take too long, only just enough time to make a cup of tea!

 14. Once the installation is complete press Enter to reboot the ESXi server.

Your CD will be ejected at this point.

 15. Once the ESXi server has booted it will receive a DHCP lease (if applicable) you can now manage this with the vSphere client or continue to set a static IP for management (recommended)

 16. Hit F2 and enter your root username and password.

 17. Select "Configure management network"

 18. Select "IP Configuration"

 19. Change to "Static IP"

20. Enter your IP address, mask and gateway and hit Enter.

It might also be advantageous to disable IPV6 if you are not using it, which is enabled by default now.

 21. Press escape [ESC] to got back to the main menu.

22. You will be asked "Apply changes and restart management network?", say yes [Y]

Note: You can set you VLAN ID in this section too if you need.

 23. Job done! you will now see you static IP address is set and you can now manage this with the vSphere client.

24. You should also now create A records on your DNS server for your ESXi servers.

e.g. esxi-3.vmadmin.co.uk   A   192.168.1.210

Next up Part 2 - Single Sign On

vSphere 5.5 - Part 2 - vCenter Single Sign On (SSO) 5.5 (inc U1) Install

If you new to vSphere 5.1 or 5.5, you might be asking what is the Single Sign On thing?!

 "vCenter Single Sign On (SSO) is a component of the VMware Cloud Suite. SSO deals with identity management for administrators and applications that interact with the vSphere platform.

SSO is based on identity management technology built by RSA and specifically tailored for VMware Cloud Infrastructure deployment."

 In english what this means is that previously when you logged into vCenter via vSphere Client you authenticated directly with Active Directory.

However now when vSphere Client connects to vCenter, it's authenticating via vCenter SSO. Which in turn has your Active Directory as an authentication method.

As the VMware product portfolio expands what VMware are trying to do is use SSO for authenticating all their products.

Single Sign On made it's first appearance in vSphere 5.1 (it skipped 5.0), and to be quite honest it was a very poorly made component of vSphere, it also required a SQL database and often failed to install.

Now in vSphere 5.5 they have made a number of changes, most notably a database is not required and instead it uses AD LDS which I'm very happy about!

The next thing you might be thinking is where do I install this, do I need another server for SSO?

No SSO, vCenter, vSphere Client, vSphere Web Client and vSphere Update Manager can all be installed on a single server (and in most cases it is).

If you want you can also install each one on it's own dedicated server.

First thing to note when running the vSphere 5.5 installer and you get the below bunch of install options (see first image).

I never go for the "Simple Install" even if I'm installing all the roles on one server, my experience is if one of the components has a problem you can work out the issues with that component before moving on.

Instead I run the installed for each component separately, it's really not any bother doing it this way.

 Here we will be installing all the components on the one server, but I won't be using the simple installer.

 1. Insert DVD or unzip "VMware-VIMSetup-all-5.5.0-xxxxxx.zip"

If it does not autorun, use "autorun.exe" in the root of the cd or folder. Click "vCenter Server" to start the installation.

2. Click "vCenter Single Sign On"

Note: DON'T go for the "Simple Install"

  3. The vCenter Single Sign On installation wizard will start. Good luck! Click Next.

 4. Read the license, agree and Click Next.

 5. Tick "Add <your domain> as a native Active Directory identity source".

This is to save you adding it manually later.

 6. Select "vCenter Single Sign On for your first vCenter Server"

 7. Enter a password for the vCenter SSO administrator account

Note: This is a local user in the SSO database, it's neither a local windows user or AD user.

If Active Directory authentication stops working you can still login with the "administrator@vsphere.local" user so make sure you keep this password safe.

 8. Enter a name for your site (e.g. London)

 10. Keep the HTTPS port as the default 7444 where possible.

 11. Select the directory in which to install vCenter SSO.

 12. Confirm the installation options before pressing "Install".

 13. vCenter SSO will being to install and configure an AD LDS instance.

 14. And that's vCenter SSO installed. Much easier than in vSphere 5.1 - thanks VMware!

Next up Part 3 - vCenter Inventory Service

vSphere 5.5 - Part 3 - vCenter Inventory Service Install

So what does the vCenter Inventory Service actually do?

 vCenter Inventory Service reduces direct client requests to the vCenter server with query caching, reducing the load on core vCenter Server processes.

The main use case of the vCenter Inventory Service is to manage the vSphere Web Client inventory objects and property queries that the client requests when users navigate the vSphere environment.

The vSphere Web Client requests only information viewed on the screen, so navigation is more efficient.

In vCenter Server 5.0, vCenter Inventory Service was a separate process. With the updated vCenter Server, it is now a separate independent component and can be offloaded to a separate server or closer to the vSphere Web Client.

This reduces traffic and improves response times.

 There is not much more to say about this other than to get on with installing it..

 1. Kick off the installer for vCenter Inventory Service and Click Next.

 2. Choose the required language. Click Next.

 3. The installer will begin. Click Next.

 4. Select the desired installation location and click next.

 5. Enter the FQDN for the inventory service.

 6. Keep the ports as their defaults. Click Next.

 7. Select the appropriate JVM memory size for your expected end goal deployment size.

 8. Enter your Single Sign On (SSO) username/password and lookup service URL:

e.g.

administrator@vsphere.local

It'sasecret123

https://vcenter1.vmadmin.co.uk:7444/lookupservice/sdk

 9. Accept the SSO certificate by Clicking "Yes"

 10. Click install

 11. And after a few short moments the vCenter Inventory Service will complete installing. Very simple, now onto the vCenter Server install in the next part...

 Next up Part 4- vCenter Server Install..

vSphere 5.5 - Part 4 - vCenter Server 5.5 (inc U1) Install

VMware vCenter Server is "THE" management system for your VMware vSphere private cloud.

It's used to manage your clusters of ESXi servers, configure HA, DRS and vMotion, manage your virtual networks and their interfaces to the physical network.

Its also used to provison storage (maybe even integrated with your SAN) and create virtual machines, including templates and other wonderful things.

So whats the requirements for VMware vCenter server?!... Well firstly it CAN be either virtual or physical and its supported on either.

Also note that a 64-Bit DSN is required to access the vCenter database.

Minimum requirements for the vCenter Server 5.5/5.5 U1 are as follows:

Processor:

Two 64-bit CPUs or one 64-bit dual-core processor (2.0 GHz or faster)

Memory:

4GB RAM - If only vCenter Server installed on this server.

10GB RAM - If vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On, and vCenter Inventory Service are installed on the same server.

Note: Also add 2GB RAM if your running SQL Server express or SQL installed locally on this server.

Disk storage:

4GB - If only vCenter Server installed on this server.

60 to 100GB - If vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On, and vCenter Inventory Service are installed on the same server.

Note: Disk requirements may be higher if your database runs on the same machine.

Networking:

1Gbps

Operating System:

• Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit (Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter)

• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter)

• Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter)

• Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter) - supported if you are installing vCenter 5.5 U1 (not 5.5)

Database:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express (Note: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express is intended for use with small deployments of up to 5 hosts and/or 50 virtual machines)

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP4 32-bit

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP4 64-bit

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP3 32-bit

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP3 64-bit

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 32-bit

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 32-bit

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 64-bit

• Plus other Oracle and IBM DB2 databases (see matrixes)

For detailed OS and Database information please refer to the Host OS section of the VMware vSphere Compatibility Matrix and the VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes.

The following is used in this walkthrough installation of vCenter Server 5.5:

Windows Server 2012 Standard

SQL Server 2012 SP1 64-bit (full SQL Server install on local vCenter server)

First up we need to install SQL Server 2012 (or you could skip this and use SQL Express 2008 R2 which will be installed for you as part of the vCenter install)

I'm going to start here assuming you have installed SQL Server 2012, but if not here will show you how: SQL Server 2012 Install Step by Step

1. Open SQL Server management studio

 2. Expand security and create a new login

 3. Give the SQL user a username/password and choose SQL authentication. Untick enforce password policy.

 4. Under Server Roles for the user make sure only public is ticked. Click Ok to create the user.

5. Create a new database for your vCenter Server.

Give it a name.

Set the initial size to something like 200 MB.

6. Set the recovery model to simple to save the log growing to large.

 7. Go back to your SQL user you created and set their default database to the vCenter database.

8. Under user mapping set them as dbo of the vCenter database you created. Click Ok.

 9. On the vCenter server create a 64-bit system DSN.

Note: Ensure you have installed the SQL native client on the vCenter server if you are using a remote SQL server

10. Start the vCenter installer once again and choose "vCenter Server"

11. The vCenter Server installer will start, Click Next.

12. Enter your license (if you don't it will run in a 60 full eval). Click Next.

13. If deploying a small scale deployment (5 hosts and upto 50 VMs) you can choose to use SQL Server 2008 Express (which is actually 2008 R2)!.

If using an full SQL server installation (either local or remote) like we are here, ensure you created a 64-bit DSN, choose to use an existing database and select your DSN.

Click Next.

14. Enter the credentials for your ODBC connection

15. Choose to run the vCenter service under the "SYSTEM" account or recommended user-specified account.

This can be a standard active directory account with local administrator rights on the vCenter server.

The account will be grated "Log on as a service" right on the server.

Click Next.

16. As this will be the first vCenter installation choose "Create a standalone VMware vCenter Server Instance".

You would create linked mode vCenter servers if you have muliple vCenter servers, most likley if you were deploying a vCenter at two different datacenters for use with Site Recovery Manager.

Click Next.

 17. Verify the ports to use for vCenter server, change if required (I recommend keeping the defaults unless you have a very specific reason).

Click Next. 

 18. Select your deployment inventory size to correctly size the JVM memory for vCenter server web services.

19. Enter your vCenter Single Sign On administrator credentials (administrator@vsphere.local) to register the vCenter Server with vCenter SSO.

Also enter the lookup service URL (e.g. https://vcenter1.vmadmin.co.uk:7444/lookupservice/sdk)

20. Accept the SSO lookup certificate by clicking Yes

21. Register the Administrators user group with vCenter Single Sign On (make sure the user group box is ticked). This way anyone that is a local administrator on this server can manage vCenter (inc domain admins).

22. Ensure the correct vCenter Inventory Service address is entered. Here we are installing this on the same server as vCenter server.

E.g. https://vcenter1.vmadmin.local:10443

23. Change your installation location if required. Click Next

24. Click Install and get yourself a coffee!

25. The installation of vCenter server will complete, Click Finish.

Next up is to install the vSphere Web Client (instead of the vSphere Client) so we can connect to and manage our vCenter Server.

Next up part 5 vSphere Web Client Install

vSphere 5.5 - Part 5 - vSphere Web Client Install

vSphere 5.0 saw the vSphere Web Client make it's entry but with limited functionality compared to the installed vSphere Client.

However now the tables have turned and with the release of vSphere 5.5 VMware are now pushing the vSphere Web Client as the client to manage vCenter Server.

We are installing this on the same vCenter server, but again if you wanted this could be installed on it's own dedicated server.

1. Again back at the installer launchpad click "vSphere Web Client" and Click Next.

2. Select the language click next!

3. Next!!

 4. Read and access the license agreement.

 5. Set the install location and click Next.

 6. Leave the ports as their defaults. Click Next.

 7. Enter the vCenter Single Sign On details as you did with the vCenter install to register it with vCenter SSO.

 8. Accept the SSO certificate.

 9. Install the self generated Web Client certificate.

 10. Hit Install!

 11. When the installation completes click finish.

 12. Note that the vSphere Web Client services will take some time to load before they become available.

Note: This is another annoyance of mine. Even with a bit of extra vCPU and vRAM after a reboot the vSphere Web client services take anything from 5-10mins to get going fully.

 13. Now point your web browser to https://yourvcenter:9443

14. Login with the administrator@vsphere.local account first to do some configuration

Note: You do not use account on a daily basis!

 15. Once logged in you want to navigate to "Administration" in the left menu

What we are looking to do here first, is add some domain accounts (in our case Domain Admins) as SSO admins.

16. Navigate to "Single Sign On --> Users and Groups"

17. Click the "Groups" tab in the center pane

18. Select "Administrators" and below that the add accounts (little blue man with a plus sign next to his head)

 19. Ensure you have selected your domain and search for your desired users/group to delegate SSO admin rights to. Click Add and Ok.

 20. You will now see "Domain Admins" as part of the Administrator group in SSO.

 21. Next we want to delegate some domain users/groups permissions within vCenter itself (as Administrators).

22. Navigate back and select your vCenter server (e.g. vcenter1.vmadmin.co.uk).

23. Select the "Manage" tab followed by the "Permissions" sub tab (in know these seem hidden but you get the hang of it).

24. Click the "plus" (+) button to add permissions (like you would in the old client).

 25. Make sure you domain is selected and search for your users/groups to add

26. I'm going to select then add "Domain Admins", Click Ok

 27. Assign a role to your user/group such as the "Administrator" role and click Ok.

 28. That's it, you've now made members of your Active Directory "Domain Admins" group administrators of both Single Sign On and vCenter Server (which includes clusters, hosts and VMs)!

 29. Now you can log out as administrator@vsphere.local and log back in as a domain user domain\username that is part of the domain admins group.

 30. Previously this user would not have been able to see or manage a vCenter Server within the vSphere Web Client or manage Single Sign On. 

Next up Part 6 - Creating a Datacenter, HS/DRS cluster and adding a host

vSphere 5.5 - Part 6 Creating a Datacenter, HA/DRS Cluster and Adding a Host

One of the first things you will configure in vCenter Server is

• • Create a datacenter

  • Create a HA and DRS cluster

  • Add an ESX/ESXi host

We will also do all these tasks from within the vSphere Web Client because we shouldn't be using the old vSphere Client anymore :-( Even though I can do this 5 times quicker using the old client!

 1. Login to the vSphere Web Client and navigate to your vCenter within the left inventory.

 2. We need to create a datacentre object under our vCenter server.

Select the Actions drop down menu and click "New Datacenter"

 3. Give the datacentre a name that describes its location

 4. Next we need a cluster within our datacentre so we can add hosts into a HA DRS cluster

Actions --> New Cluster

 5. Give the cluster a sensible name. This could be the rack that the cluster of servers are in, it could be the production cluster, test cluster, DR whatever makes sense for you.

6. Tick "Turn ON" DRS and "Turn ON" vSphere HA.

Click Ok to create the Cluster.

 7. Now we have our HA/DRS cluster we want to add some ESXi servers (hosts) to the cluster.

Select the cluster

Actions --> Add Host..

 8. Enter the FQDN of your ESXi server you want to add (not the IP address)

Note: If you missed the step at the beginning to create an A record in DNS you can do it now.

 9. Enter the username (root) and password for your ESXi server. Click Next.

 10. Accept the certificate from the host.

 11. Check the host details and click next.

 12. Assign a license key for the ESXi server (vSphere) or do this later and run in evaluation mode

 13. Choose to enable lockdown mode (default is to leave it disabled)

Note: If you enable lockdown mode you cannot manage the host directly if vCenter is unavailable. But you can disable lockdown if you can get on the console of the ESXi Server (aka DCUI)

 14. Any VMs on the host can be either added to the root resource pool or placed into a new one for this this hosts resource pools and VMs.

 15. Click Finish to add the host to the cluster. 

 16. After a couple of minutes the host will be successfully added to the HA/DRS cluster and you can create VMs at the host or the cluster level.

 17. View of a virtual machine within the vSphere Web Client.

To open the console you must install the client integration plugin.

Note: IE 11 seems to love this - not! IE compatibility mode appears to fix it but Firefox or Chome appear to speed up the web UI.