Basic documentation about my lab environment VMware vCenter Server 6.5 installation and configuration. I decided to run the UI based installation form my Windows 8 based VDI. However, there is a cli option available for the deployment and a blog post about that can be found here.
Hang on for a lot of print screens:)
Deployment/Installation
Follow the below procedure to successfully install vCenter Server Appliance version 6.5.
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- Mount the downloaded ISO and double click the installer.exe which can be found under Mountpoint:\vcsa-ui-installer\win32
- Since this was a completely fresh installation i selected the Install option.
- Click next on the Introduction section.
- Click the check box “I accept the terms of the license agreement” in the End User Lices Agreement section and click Next
- I selected “vCenter Server with Embedded Platform Service Controller” as my Deplyment type since this will be a small deployment with only one vCenter Server and a maximum of 5 ESXi hosts.
- I used my only existing ESXi server as the Appliance Deplyment Target.
- Accept (click Yes) the certificate warning which i get since i’m using the ESXi self generated certificate.
- Provide the VM name and root password in the “Set up Appliance VM section”The following password requirements exists.
- Mount the downloaded ISO and double click the installer.exe which can be found under Mountpoint:\vcsa-ui-installer\win32
- The following Deployment size configuration is available:
- Deployment Size = Tiny
- Storage Size = Default
See blog post VMware vCenter Server Appliance resource requirements for more information about deployment sizes and resource requirements.
- Select the Datastore when you want to place the VM. There is also an option to select thin provisioning.
- Configure your Network details. You’ll get a warning if the FQDN is not resolvable to the IP address you provide.
- Verify all looks good & click Finish on the “Ready to complete stage 1” section to start the deployment.
- Sit back and watch the installation or grab a coffey:)
- Click Continue on the “Install – Stage 1: Deploy vCenter Server with Embedded Platform Service Controller” page to start stage 2.
Configuration
The configuration section is as easy as the deployment/installation part so follow the below procedure to successfully configure the vCenter Server Appliance version 6.5.
- Nothing to verify at the introduction page, just click next
- The Appliance Configuration page lets you configure:
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- NTP – Always a good thing to configure, even for a lab environment.
- SSH – which i enabled for my lab environment. Disabled is the default option
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- SSO configuration page need the following:
- SSO domain name
- Sao user name
- SSO Password
- Site Name
- CEIP is the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program. Just decide if you want to participate or not. My customers usually do not enable this for their production environments.
- Verify all looks good & click Finish on the Ready to complete page.
- Good to know.
- Configuration continues ……….
- And now it’s finished
The links included at the Complete page takes you to:
Now let’s access the system via the three main interfaces not including the physical machine console where the director console interface (DCUI) is shown.
- SSH where you can login with the root or administrator@vsphere.local accounts
- https:/7vc01.vcdx56.local:5480 which is the new admin interface.
- https://vc01.vcdx56.local which gives you the option to start various interfaces e.g. flash mode based vSphere Web Client and the new HTML5 based client
- https://vc01.vcdx56.local/vsphere-clinet which takes you to the Flash based vSphere Web client
- https://vc01.vcdx56.local/ui which takes you to the HTML5 based client
