vCenter

How to change vCenter Server Certificate

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, Today I decided to change my VCSA 8.0 certificate. For this purpose, we must do 4 things:

  1.  Create CSR from the vCenter server
  2.  Get a Certificate from an authority CA (I use a Microsoft CA server)
  3.  Install OpenSSL and Convert the CER format certificate to PEM format
  4. Assign it to vCenter

Let’s start.

1. Create CSR from the vCenter server:

1-1 Login to vCenter Server

1-2 Go to the Inventory

1-3 Go to the Certificate –> Certificate Management –> Generate Certificate Signing Request(CSR)

1-4 Enter your information

1-5 Copy CSR Request

2. Get a Certificate from an authority CA (I use a Microsoft CA server)

2-1 Go to your Microsoft CA server (or other Authority Certificate) http;//your_CA-Server_IP/certsrv

Click on the “Request a certificate“

2-2 Click on the “advanced certificate request“

2-3 Past your CSR request here (We copy CSR Request in 1-5) and choose Web Server, then click submit.

2-4 Download Certificate (Base 64 encoded)

3.  Install OpenSSL and Convert the CER format certificate to PEM format

3-1 Now, we need to convert this certificate to PEM, so we need a tool for covering the certificate.

I used OpenSSL tools.

How to install OpenSSL?

3-2 I downloaded the MSI version. And click on it.

3-3 Accept the agrrement and Next.

3-4 Select a path for installation.

3-5 Next

3-6 Click on the Install button.

3-7 Open the Command prompt as an administrator account, then go to the installation_path\OpenSSL-Win64\bin

3-8 Used this command to convert .cer to .pem. (for vCenter Server certificate)

openssl x509 -in certnew.cer -out certnew-vc01.pem

3-9 Used this command to convert .cer to .pem. (for root certificate)

openssl x509 -in root.cer -out root.pem

4. Assign it to vCenter

4-1 Now, click on the “Import and Replace Certificate” button.

4-2 Choose to Replace with external CA certificate where CSR is generated from vCenter Server.

4-3 Click on the Browse File button, then

4-4 Select vCenter PEM format certificate

4-5 Click on the Browse File button, then

4-6 Select root PEM format certificate

4-7 The vCenter ask you to wait some minutes and after that try to refresh your browser.

Finish 🙂

How to install an unattended vCenter

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Hi, Today, I decided to install an unattended vCenter (vCSA) server appliance. You can use the CLI installer to perform a silent deployment of a vCenter Server appliance on an ESXi host or vCenter Server instance.

The CLI deployment process includes downloading the vCenter Server installer on a network virtual machine or physical server from which you want to perform the deployment, preparing a JSON configuration file with the deployment information, and running the deployment command.

Steps:

Step 1– Register your vCenter Server appliance A and PTR record on your DNS server. Like this: vc01.khoshraftar.com. Then:

vCenter vCSA

Step 2– You can choose where you want vCSA installed, on one ESXi or one existing vCenter. I will be installing it on an ESXi. Then:

Step 3– Download vCSA ISO, mount it, and navigate to \vcsa-cli-installer\templates\install. This folder contains JSON configuration files, which you can edit and then use with the vCSA command line installer. The JSON files, used in conjunction with command line parameters, provide a way to run an unattended vCSA installation. Then:

I selected the embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json file to match the deployment type that I wanted.

khoshraftar.com vCenter

Step 4– Copy the selected JSON file (embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json) to a local folder on your computer; where you’re running the installer from. Then:

I copy it here, then:

C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\source\embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json

Step 5– Using Visual Studio Code or Notepad ++, edit the JSON file as follows. Refer to this link for a complete list of parameters. Then:

Sections 1: Target ESXi Server details.

HostnameThe FQDN or IP of the ESXi host on which vCSA is installed.
Username & passwordThe credentials needed to access the ESXi.
Deployment.networkThe portgroup to which vCSA Management connects.
khoshraftar.com vCenter

Sections 2: vCSA deployment details

You must provide the ‘deployment_option’ key with a value, that will affect the vCenter Server Appliance’s configuration parameters, such as the vCenter Server Appliance’s number of vCPUs, the memory size, the storage size, and the maximum numbers of ESXi hosts and VMs which can be managed. For a list of acceptable values, run the supported deployment sizes help, i.e. vcsa-deploy –supported-deployment-sizes.

thin.disk.modeDetermines if the vCSA’s disks are created using thin disk mode.
Deployment.option Refer to this to review the available deployment types.
Name The name assigned to vCSA’s VM; is displayed in the inventory.
khoshraftar.com vCenter

Sections 3: vCSA network details

ip.family The IP version used (4 or 6) for the network configuration.
mode Determines if static and dhcp network settings are used.
ip The IP address assigned to the vCSA.
dns.servers 
A comma-separated IP address list of DNS servers configured on vCSA.
prefix Subnet mask in prefix format (Ex. 255.255.255.0 = 24, 255.255.240.0 = 20).
gateway The IP address of the default gateway set on vCSA
system.name The FQDN (hostname) for the appliance.
khoshraftar.com vCenter

Sections 4: vCSA OS

password The root password is used to access vCSA’s via SSH, VAMI, or otherwise.
ntp_serversSet your NTP server IP address
ssh.enable Set to true to enable SSH access by default.

khoshraftar.com vCenter

Sections 5: SSO details

password This is the password for administrator@vsphere.local.
domain-name The SSO domain name (you can leave it as is).
khoshraftar.com vCenter

Step 6– Open an administrative command prompt and navigate to \vcsa-cli-installer\win32 on the mounted ISO image. Then:

khoshraftar.com vCenter

Step 7– Perform an Installation using vcsa-deploy install. Then:

khoshraftar.com vCenter
vcsa-deploy install --no-ssl-certificate-verification --acknowledge-ceip --accept-eula C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\source\embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json
khoshraftar.com vCenter

Deploying vCSA OVF. Then:

khoshraftar.com vCenter

And the Final result.

khoshraftar.com vCenter

Finally, you can find your logs file from here:

khoshraftar.com vCenter

Finish 🙂

My Latest Posts:

Step by Step, Install vCenter 8.0 update1

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, Today I want to install vCenter 8.0 Update1.

You can find system prerequisites on this page.

I downloaded VCSA 8.0 ISO from VMware.com and run the installer.

I choose Install.

1-Introduction

Note: The external Platform Services Controller deployment has been deprecated.

Note: Installing the vCenter Server is a two-stage process. The first stage involves deploying a new vCenter Server to the target ESXi host or a compute resource in the target vCenter Server. The second stage completes the setup of the deployed vCenter Server. Next

2- License agreement, click on the checkbox. Next

3- Specify the vCenter Server deployment target settings. The target is the ESXi host or vCenter Server will be deployed.

On this page, fill in all the blank fields, Next

Accept the certificate warning and click  NEXT

4- Enter the new VM name for your VCSA 7.0 Update 3 and set the root password for it, NEXT

5- Select your deployment size, I choose Medium Size. NEXT

6- Select data store, you can select Thin or Thick disk mode, NEXT

7- Configure your network settings, NEXT

10- The installer will begin deploying the new VCSA according to the settings you provided. Finish

1- The second stage process. NEXT

2- Set your Time and NTP servers, and you can enable or Disable SSH access to vCenter Server.

3- You have two option2: 1-Create a new SS domain or 2-Join an existing SSO domain

4- You can now join VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program. This basically allows VMware to collect certain sanitized data from your environment, which could help with future releases.

5-Install – Stage 2

6- This process took about 45 minutes for me.

9- Login to the VCSA by the FQDN or IP address and proceed.

Finish 🙂

Increasing the disk space for the vCenter Server Appliance in vSphere 6.5, 6.7 and 7.0

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, Today I had a problem, my vCenter server storage/log was full.

I was able to solve it with these instructions:

To increase the disk space

  1. Power off the vCenter Server VM. If the VM is inaccessible, then do this from the ESXi host level
  2. Right-click the VM.
  3. Click Edit Settings.
  4. Select Virtual Disk.
  5. Increase the size of the disk. Ensuring there is no snapshot attached to VM. 
  6. Power on VM
  7. Use the BASH Shell or Appliance Management CLI o expand the partition(s).

Increase disk space using BASH Shell

  1. Log in to the vCenter Server Appliance using SSH and root credentials.
  2. Run this command to enable the Bash shell:

    shell.set –enabled true
     
  3. Type shell and press Enter.
  4. Use these commands to verify which disk is experiencing disk capacity issues, then trace which SCSI ID will show in the VM edit settings:
df -h;  lsblk;  lsscsi

5- Using the VAMI address –> https://vcenter:5480 –> Monitor –> Disks

You can find the Hard Disk number that you must be increased.

6- Using the vSphere Client or vSphere Web Client, locate the vCenter Server Appliance virtual machine and increase the disk space on the affected virtual disk.

7- After the virtual disk is increased, return to the SSH session and run this command to automatically expand any logical volumes for which the physical volumes are increased:

/usr/lib/applmgmt/support/scripts/autogrow.sh

8- Run this command to confirm that the virtual disk has successfully grown:

df -h; lsblk; lsscsi

9- you can see it from VAMI

Finish 🙂

How to remove the unused extension from vCenter 7

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, Today I will show you how we can remove the unused extension from VMware vCenter.

First of all, Where is the extenstion?

Please go to this address:

https://vCenter IP address → Administration → Solution → Client Plugins

I want delete this plugin from my vCenter.

1- go to the below address

https://vCenter IP address/mob

2- Enter your vCenter username and password

3- In the Properties Section, Click on Content

4- On the next page, click on ExtensionManager

5- Find your extension name. For example, I searched for the HPE plugin

Copy the extension name

6- Go to the Methods section under the page and find and click on UnregisterExtension

7- Paste or write your extension that you want to delete here and click on Invoke Method.

Finish 🙂

How we can change vCenter’s (VCSA) name or IP address

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, Today I plan to change vCenter7’s hostname, domain name and IP address.

Note:

Please take a backup from your vCenter and unregistered your plugins (such as monitoring, backup) from vCenter server.

Make sure that the new FQDN/Hostname is resolvable to the IP address (DNS A records). Make sure that the resolution works in both directions.

First, Connect to vCenter VAMI interface, The address is :

https://your_vCenter_ip_address or FQDN :5480/

Then go to Networking> end click Edit

In this wizard will select a network adapter that you would like to edit.

On the next screen, we can change the hostname, IP address and a DNS setting.

On this screen, we just need to fill in our Single Sign-On (SSO) credentials.

On this screen, select the checkbox, if you have made a backup of your vCenter Server and unregistered extensions.

Network update in progress

Process Completed.

Finish 🙂

How to set a proxy for ESXi 6.7?

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, If you set a proxy for your vCenter version 6.7.0.46000 , and it is not working, this post is fit for you.

Today I configured a proxy from UI for vCenter version 6.7.0.46000, but it is not working.

1- login to VAMI.

Https://vcenter-ip-address:5480

Login as a root user.

2- Networking –> Proxy Settings

{This configured not working}.

What is a solution?

It has a trick.

3- Login to VAMI with SSH client like putty.

4- vi this file

/etc/wgetrc

5- Put your proxy address in this file

# You can set the default proxies for Wget to use for http, https, and ftp.
# They will override the value in the environment.
https_proxy = https://proxy_address:port/
http_proxy = http://proxy_address:port/

Finish 🙂

Import or Clone a Virtual Machine with Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Today, my boss told me we need to move 2 virtual machines from vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 7. And we need to move 1 virtual machine from vCenter 7 to vCenter 6.7. VMware has a solution for these scenarios.

Now, for vSphere 7.0 Update 3, the feature is further enhanced to support bulk clone operation! In addition, there are some quality improvements such as a new enhanced vCenter Server connection form and a new icon.

Prerequisites

  1. Obtain the credentials for the administrator account of the vCenter Server instance from which you want to import or clone virtual machines.
  2. Verify that the source vCenter Server instances are version 6.5 or later.
  3. Verify that the target vCenter Server instance is version 7.0 Update 1c or later if you want to import virtual machines to another vCenter Server instance.
  4. Verify that the target vCenter Server instance is version 7.0 Update 3 if you want to clone virtual machines to another vCenter Server instance.

Scenario1:

Import Workflow:

In order to clone several virtual workloads from another vCenter Server to the current one, right-click on the destination host/cluster and select the “Import VMs” action.

After that, enter the credentials of the source vCenter Server in the import connection form.

On the next screen, select the workloads that should be cloned.

When you complete the wizard, the workloads will be cloned to the destination vCenter Server.

Scenario2:

Export Workflow:

Select the virtual workloads that should be cloned to a foreign vCenter Server and click on “Migrate…”

On the next screen, make sure to select “Cross vCenter Server export” option.

Then, select the destination vCenter Server and, when you complete the wizard, all workloads will be cloned there.

With the enhancements to the XVM in vSphere 7.0 Update 3, users are able to perform a bulk workload clone operation between different vCenter Servers. This makes the feature more versatile and suits a variety of use cases, some of which are:

  1. Migrating/cloning VMs from an on-premise to a cloud (VMware Cloud) environment
  2. Quicker adoption of the new vSphere versions by migrating/cloning the workloads from the old vCenter Server

For a more detailed information of the usage and requirements, please see the official documentation.

Finish 🙂

vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) enhancements

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, Today i want to write about new feature of vCenter 7 Update 3, With vSphere 7.0 Update 3, vSphere admins can configure vCLS virtual machines to run on specific datastores by configuring the vCLS VMs datastore preference per cluster. Admins can also define compute policies to specify how the vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) should place vCLS agent virtual machines (vCLS VMs) and other groups of workload VMs. 

First of all, What is vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) ?

vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) is a new feature in vSphere 7.0 Update 1. This feature ensures cluster services such as vSphere DRS and vSphere HA are all available to maintain the resources and health of the workloads running in the clusters independent of the vCenter Server instance availability.

In vSphere 7.0 Update 1, VMware has released a platform/framework to facilitate them to run independently of the vCenter Server instance availability. In this release, vCenter Server is still required for running cluster services such as vSphere DRS, vSphere HA etc.

vCLS is a mandatory feature that is deployed on each vSphere cluster when vCenter Server is upgraded to Update 1 or when a fresh deployment of vSphere 7.0 Update 1. ESXi host can be of any older version that is compatible with vCenter server 7.0 Update 1.

Size of the vCLS VMs

vSphere Cluster Service VMs are very small VMs compared to workload VMs. Each consumes 1 vCPU and 128 MB of memory and about 500 MB of storage. Below table shows the specification of these VMs:
 

Memory 128 MB
Memory Reservation 100 MB
Swap Size 256 MB
CPU 1
CPU Reservation 100 MHz
Hard Disk 2 GB
Ethernet Adapter 0 (It is a No NIC VM)
VMDK Size -245 MB
Storage Space -480 MB

How can configure this new feature of vCenter:

Login to your vCenter Server.

Click on your Cluster name and select Configure tab and select vSphere Cluster Services –> Datastores

Click ADD

Select one or more DataStores in which you want vCLS VMs to be created.

Refrences:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/rn/vsphere-vcenter-server-703-release-notes.html

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/80472

Finish 🙂

How to assign license to the vCenter 7.0 Update3

Mohammad Hossein Khoshraftar Yari

Hi, After install vCenter 7.0 Update 3 in my last post, You need to assign license to your vCenter.

For this purpose, You need to buy a license from VMware company. 

Login to your vCenter Server, You see a warning on your screen. Click on Manage Your Licenses button.

Your vCenter license is on Evaluation License. CLick ADD

Enter your License Key

Enter your License Name, NEXT

Your License import in to the vCenter repositry, Now you need assign your License to an asset. Click on Assets tab and choose VCENTER SERVER SYSTEMS

Select your vCenter License and click OK.

Now, Refresh your page, The alert message disappears .

Finish 🙂