vRLI Distributed Install/Upgrade via vRSLCM API

29/02/2020 Manish Jha

In my last Post I demonstrated how to install and upgrade a distributed vROPs via vRSLCM API. In this post I will walk through how to perform install/upgrade a distributed vRLI environment.

Steps for deploying/upgrading any vRealize product via vRSLCM API are pretty much same, only the json payload varies.

vRLI Deployment Procedure

Step 1: Pre-Validate Environment Creation

Method: POST

URL: https://<vrslcm-fqdn>/lcm/lcops/api/environments/import/prevalidate

Sample Payload:

{
   "requestId":"null",
   "requestType":"VALIDATE_CREATE_ENVIRONMENT",
   "environmentRequestDTO":{
      "environmentId":"vRLI-4.8-Distributed",
      "environmentName":"vRLI-4.8-Distributed",
      "infrastructure":{
         "properties":{
            "dataCenterName":"SDDC-MAAS",
            "regionName":"default",
            "zoneName":"default",
            "vCenterName":"vcenter.mgmt.vmw",
            "vCenterHost":"vcenter.mgmt.vmw",
            "vcUsername":"administrator@vsphere.local",
            "vcPassword":"locker:password:e1dfebff-4600-4439-afb5-851e1830a71e:VC-Password",
            "acceptEULA":"true",
            "enableTelemetry":"false",
            "adminEmail":"xyz@vmware.com",
            "defaultPassword":"locker:password:26c77689-e7a8-4f27-8c85-c9a51a77689c:Default-Password",
            "certificate":"locker:certificate:f2558190-2002-46e2-847f-eb83c6c110be:vRLI-Certs",
            "cluster":"MGMT_DC#MGMT_CLU",
            "storage":"vsanDatastore",
            "folderName":"group-v50(MGMT_VMs)",
            "resourcePool":"resgroup-43(MGMT-ResourcePool)",
            "diskMode":"thin",
            "network":"VM_MGMT",
            "masterVidmEnabled":"true",
            "dns":"x.x.x.5",
            "domain":"mgmt.vmw",
            "gateway":"x.x.x.1",
            "netmask":"255.255.255.0",
            "searchpath":"mgmt.vmw",
            "timeSyncMode":"ntp",
            "ntp":"x.x.x.x",
            "isDhcp":"false"
         }
      },
      "products":[
         {
            "id":"vrli",
            "version":"4.8.0",
            "properties":{
               "certificate":"locker:certificate:f2558190-2002-46e2-847f-eb83c6c110be:vRLI-Certs",
               "productPassword":"locker:password:26c77689-e7a8-4f27-8c85-c9a51a77689c:Default-Password",
               "licenseRef":"locker:license:84727216-1e61-4694-bea9-4b19a5969e20:vRLI-4.x",
               "nodeSize":"small",
               "configureClusterVIP":"true",
               "affinityRule":true,
               "configureAffinitySeparateAll":"true",
               "ntp":"x.x.x.x",
               "timeSyncMode":"ntp"
            },
            "clusterVIP":{
               "clusterVips":[
                  {
                     "type":"vrli-cluster-1",
                     "properties":{
                        "hostName":"vrli.mgmt.vmw",
                        "ip":"x.x.x.110"
                     }
                  }
               ]
            },
            "nodes":[
               {
                  "type":"vrli-master",
                  "properties":{
                     "vmName":"vrli-master",
                     "hostName":"vrli01.mgmt.vmw",
                     "ip":"x.x.x.111"
                  }
               },
               {
                  "type":"vrli-worker",
                  "properties":{
                     "vmName":"vrli-worker-1",
                     "hostName":"vrli02.mgmt.vmw",
                     "ip":"x.x.x.112"
                  }
               },
               {
                  "type":"vrli-worker",
                  "properties":{
                     "vmName":"vrli-worker-2",
                     "hostName":"vrli03.mgmt.vmw",
                     "ip":"x.x.x.113"
                  }
               }
            ]
         }
      ]
   }
}

Method: POST

URL: https://<vrslcm-fqdn>/lcm/lcops/api/environments/import/prevalidate

Sample Payload:

{

"requestId":"null",

"requestType":"VALIDATE_CREATE_ENVIRONMENT",

"environmentRequestDTO":{

"environmentId":"vRLI-4.8-Distributed",

"environmentName":"vRLI-4.8-Distributed",

"infrastructure":{

"properties":{

"dataCenterName":"SDDC-MAAS",

"regionName":"default",

"zoneName":"default",

"vCenterName":"vcenter.mgmt.vmw",

"vCenterHost":"vcenter.mgmt.vmw",

"vcUsername":"administrator@vsphere.local",

"vcPassword":"locker:password:e1dfebff-4600-4439-afb5-851e1830a71e:VC-Password",

"acceptEULA":"true",

"enableTelemetry":"false",

"adminEmail":"xyz@vmware.com",

"defaultPassword":"locker:password:26c77689-e7a8-4f27-8c85-c9a51a77689c:Default-Password",

"certificate":"locker:certificate:f2558190-2002-46e2-847f-eb83c6c110be:vRLI-Certs",

"cluster":"MGMT_DC#MGMT_CLU",

"storage":"vsanDatastore",

"folderName":"group-v50(MGMT_VMs)",

"resourcePool":"resgroup-43(MGMT-ResourcePool)",

"diskMode":"thin",

"network":"VM_MGMT",

"masterVidmEnabled":"true",

"dns":"x.x.x.5",

"domain":"mgmt.vmw",

"gateway":"x.x.x.1",

"netmask":"255.255.255.0",

"searchpath":"mgmt.vmw",

"timeSyncMode":"ntp",

"ntp":"x.x.x.x",

"isDhcp":"false"

}

"products":[

{

"id":"vrli",

"version":"4.8.0",

"properties":{

"certificate":"locker:certificate:f2558190-2002-46e2-847f-eb83c6c110be:vRLI-Certs",

"productPassword":"locker:password:26c77689-e7a8-4f27-8c85-c9a51a77689c:Default-Password",

"licenseRef":"locker:license:84727216-1e61-4694-bea9-4b19a5969e20:vRLI-4.x",

"nodeSize":"small",

"configureClusterVIP":"true",

"affinityRule":true,

"configureAffinitySeparateAll":"true",

"ntp":"x.x.x.x",

"timeSyncMode":"ntp"

"clusterVIP":{

"clusterVips":[

{

"type":"vrli-cluster-1",

"properties":{

"hostName":"vrli.mgmt.vmw",

"ip":"x.x.x.110"

}

]

"nodes":[

{

"type":"vrli-master",

"properties":{

"vmName":"vrli-master",

"hostName":"vrli01.mgmt.vmw",

"ip":"x.x.x.111"

}

{

"type":"vrli-worker",

"properties":{

"vmName":"vrli-worker-1",

"hostName":"vrli02.mgmt.vmw",

"ip":"x.x.x.112"

}

{

"type":"vrli-worker",

"properties":{

"vmName":"vrli-worker-2",

"hostName":"vrli03.mgmt.vmw",

"ip":"x.x.x.113"

}

]

}

]

}

Sample Output

{
    "requestId": "96f6869e-7651-4630-84f6-cda32f38fda0"
}

{

"requestId": "96f6869e-7651-4630-84f6-cda32f38fda0"

}

2: Check Status of Pre-validation

Method: GET

URL: https://<vrslcm-fqdn>/lcm/request/api/prevalidationreport?requestId=<request-id>

Method: GET

URL: https://<vrslcm-fqdn>/lcm/request/api/prevalidationreport?requestId=<request-id>

vROPs Distributed Install/Upgrade via vRSLCM API

27/02/202027/02/2020 Manish Jha

vRSLCM is such a great tool that it lifts all the complexity of deploying vRealize suite in just few clicks. Whether you are looking for standalone deployment or a distributed one, you are shielded from all the complexity that goes behind in setting up an environment.

Recently while working on my new project, I was tasked to find out a way where all the UI operations related to vRSLCM can be automated. In my last post I listed all the API’s that are needed to perform end to end vRSLCM configuration. We need to fetch few details before starting install/upgrade of any vRealize product. Read More

Automating vRSLCM 8.x End to End Configuration via API

23/02/202004/03/2020 Manish Jha

In this post we will learn how to leverage vRealize Suite Life Cycle Manager (vRSLCM) API to automated deployment & configuration.

With release of vRSLCM 8.x, VMware introduced simple installer (similar to vCSA) for deployment of vRSLCM. Below is screenshot of how the simple installer looks like.

As of now we don’t have any API which can be leveraged to automate appliance deployment, so we will perform this task via ovftool.

Deploying vRSLCM via ovftool

ovftool --name=vrslcm2.mgmt.vmw --X:injectOvfEnv --X:logFile=ovftool.log --allowExtraConfig --noSSLVerify --datastore=vsanDatastore --network=VM_MGMT --acceptAllEulas --diskMode=thin --powerOn --prop:vami.hostname=vrslcm2.mgmt.vmw --prop:varoot-password=XXXXX --prop:va-ssh-enabled=True --prop:va-firstboot-enabled=True --prop:va-telemetry-enabled=True --prop:va-ntp-servers=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.gateway.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.domain.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=mgmt.vmw --prop:vami.searchpath.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=mgmt.vmw --prop:vami.DNS.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.ip0.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.netmask0.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=255.255.255.0 C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\vra-lcm-installer-14878991\vrlcm\VMware-vLCM-Appliance-8.0.0.16-14878959_OVF10.ova vi://root@esxmb4.mgmt.vmw/

ovftool --name=vrslcm2.mgmt.vmw --X:injectOvfEnv --X:logFile=ovftool.log --allowExtraConfig --noSSLVerify --datastore=vsanDatastore --network=VM_MGMT --acceptAllEulas --diskMode=thin --powerOn --prop:vami.hostname=vrslcm2.mgmt.vmw --prop:varoot-password=XXXXX --prop:va-ssh-enabled=True --prop:va-firstboot-enabled=True --prop:va-telemetry-enabled=True --prop:va-ntp-servers=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.gateway.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.domain.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=mgmt.vmw --prop:vami.searchpath.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=mgmt.vmw --prop:vami.DNS.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.ip0.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=x.x.x.x --prop:vami.netmask0.VMware_vRealize_Suite_Life_Cycle_Manager_Appliance=255.255.255.0 C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\vra-lcm-installer-14878991\vrlcm\VMware-vLCM-Appliance-8.0.0.16-14878959_OVF10.ova vi://root@esxmb4.mgmt.vmw/

Getting Started With vROPs Tenant App For vCloud Director 10.x

23/02/202030/03/2020 Manish Jha

In this post I will walk through step by step installation for vRealize Operations Manager Tenant App for vCloud Director. But before I jump into lab, I want to take a moment to explain what this solution is all about and how it looks like from architectural point of view.

What is vROPs Tenant App for vCloud Director?

vROPs Tenant App is a solution which helps in exposing vRops performance metrics to tenants in a vCD environment. Each tenant can only see metrics data relevant to their organization.

From a service provider point of view, this is an awesome solution as Tenant App enables tenants to have complete visibility of performance metrics of their environment. If an environment is not performing as per expectations, tenants can leverage this solution to root cause analysis of performance issue and they can perform L1-L2 level of maintenance/troubleshooting tasks themselves without raising service tickets with service providers. Read More

How To Update/Patch Multi Cell vCD 10.x Environment

17/02/202022/03/2020 Manish Jha

In this post we will learn how to patch/update a Multi cell vCD 10.x environment.

Note: Above steps are for updating vCD from one build to another (patch release) within same version. Please do not confuse this with upgrading a vCD deployment where we jump from one major version to another.

I will breakup this post in 4 sections:

Pre Update Checks.
vCD Update Process.
Post Update Checks.
Post Update Tasks.

Pre Update Checks

There are number of checks which must be performed before attempting to update a vCD environment.

1: vCD Health Check & Primary Node identification: Before updating multi cell vCD environment, please ensure all vCD cells in server group are healthy and functioning correctly. Read More

UI and Deployment Parameter Changes in Cloud Foundation 3.9.1

15/01/2020 Manish Jha

VMware Cloud Foundation 3.9.1 was released yesterday and this release brought few changes with it. In this post I will jot down few of the those changes.

1: Updated BOM: VCF 3.9.1 deploys SDDC with latest release of vSphere 6.7 U3b. It also includes NSX-V 6.4.6 (latest) for management domain. For complete list of updated BOM, please refer to the below screenshot

2: Changes in Cloud Builder UI: VCF 3.9.1 is based on Cloud Builder 2.2.1.0. This release of cloud builder have incorporated few changes in UI. Few of them are listed below: Read More

Configuring VCF 3.9 Multi-Instance Management (aka Federation)

12/01/2020 Manish Jha

One of the cool features that was introduced in VMware Cloud Foundation 3.9 is multi-instance management of VCF. This feature allows you to monitor multiple VCF instances from a single pane of glass. For customers who have SDDC deployed via VCF across regions, it was very difficult task to manage them all from one place.

To solve this problem, VCF 3.9 introduced concept of Federation.

Federation allows multi VCF instance to connect together for aggregated visibility and ease of management. Customers can now have the ability to view the health of all workloads running across all VCF instances globally. VCF multi-instance enables customers to view their data centers as a single resource pool. The main features of federation are: Read More

Deploying NSX-T Based Workload Domain in VMware Cloud Foundation

11/10/2019 Manish Jha

In this post I will walk through steps of deploying a VI workload domain based on NSX-T. Note: We can only deploy VI domain with NSX-T. As of now Management workload domain is only NSX-V based.

Before kicking NSX-T based VI workload domain, please ensure you have met following prerequisites:

1: NSX-T license has been added to SDDC-Manager under Administration > Licensing

2: NSX-T install bundle have been downloaded from repository. Below is screenshot of a downloaded bundle.

3: Network Pool have been created for the workload domain. This pool will have IP address for the vMotion & vSAN network. Read More

vROPS Deployment in VMware Cloud Foundation

02/10/2019 Manish Jha

VMware Cloud Foundation not only deploys SDDC but can be used to automate deployment of vRealize suite components such as vRealize Suite Life Cycle Manager (vRSLCM), vRealize Log Insight, vRealize Operations and vRealize Automation.

Before you can deploy vROPS/vRA or vRLI, you need to deploy vRSLCM using vCF. vCF can then trigger workflows and send requests via API to vRSLCM for taking care of deployment.

In this post I will walk through steps of deploying both vRSLCM and vROPS.

To deploy vRSLCM, login to SDDC Manager and navigate to Home> Administration > vRealize Suite > vRealize Suite LifeCycle Manger and click on Deploy. Read More

Scaling Workload Domain in VMware Cloud Foundation

29/09/2019 Manish Jha

When you spin up a brand new SDDC using VMware Cloud Foundation, minimum number of hosts that are needed in Management Domain and VI Domain are 4 & 3 respectively. You can scale up Management domain up to 8 hosts and VI domain to 64 hosts.

Before scaling up the workload domains, we need to commission the host first and add it to vCF inventory. To add new hosts to inventory, we need to create a new network pool or expand the default network pool created during bring-up.

Once network pool has been created, you can start commission of new hosts by navigating to SDDC-Manager > Hosts and click on “Commission Hosts” button Read More

Troubleshooting NFS Mount Issue During SDDC Bringup in vCF 3.7

26/09/201926/09/2019 Manish Jha

Recently while playing with vCF 3.7.2 in my lab, I encountered an issue where SDDC Bringup process was halted because of NFS mount problem.

If you are experienced with vCF then you would be knowing that during bringup process, NFS share from the sddc manager vm is mounted as a NFS datastore across the management domain by the name “lcm-bundle-repo”.

On checking the hostd.log on Esxi host I saw following log entries

2019-09-25T04:47:25.303Z info hostd[2098744] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=0297e199 user=root] Activation [N5Vmomi10ActivationE:0x0000001ae16a7db0] : Invoke done [createNasDatastore] on [vim.host.DatastoreSystem:ha-datastoresystem]

2019-09-25T04:47:25.303Z info hostd[2098744] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=0297e199 user=root] Throw vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault

2019-09-25T04:47:25.303Z info hostd[2098744] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=0297e199 user=root] Result:
--> (vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault) {
--> faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
--> faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [
--> (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) {
--> key = "vob.vmfs.nfs.mount.error.perm.denied",
--> arg = (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) [
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "1",
--> value = "10.62.73.244"
--> },
--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
--> key = "2",
--> value = "/nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount"
--> }
--> ],
--> message = "NFS mount 10.62.x.244:/nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount failed: The mount request was denied by the NFS server. Check that the export exists and that the client is permitted to mount it.
--> "
--> }

2019-09-25T04:47:25.303Z info hostd[2098744] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=0297e199 user=root] Activation [N5Vmomi10ActivationE:0x0000001ae16a7db0] : Invoke done [createNasDatastore] on [vim.host.DatastoreSystem:ha-datastoresystem]

2019-09-25T04:47:25.303Z info hostd[2098744] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=0297e199 user=root] Throw vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault

2019-09-25T04:47:25.303Z info hostd[2098744] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=0297e199 user=root] Result:

--> (vim.fault.PlatformConfigFault) {

--> faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,

--> faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [

--> (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) {

--> key = "vob.vmfs.nfs.mount.error.perm.denied",

--> arg = (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) [

--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {

--> key = "1",

--> value = "10.62.73.244"

--> },

--> (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {

--> key = "2",

--> value = "/nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount"

--> }

--> ],

--> message = "NFS mount 10.62.x.244:/nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount failed: The mount request was denied by the NFS server. Check that the export exists and that the client is permitted to mount it.

--> "

--> }

vmkernel.log was full of below error messages Read More

vCF 3.7 to 3.8 Online Upgrade

26/09/201903/10/2019 Manish Jha

In this post we will learn how to perform online upgrade of VMware Cloud Foundation from version 3.7.2 to 3.8.0. Although upgrade process is fairly simple and straight forward, it needs a bit of planning.

As a best practice, it is always recommended to read the release notes & known issues in new version of product before performing upgrade. vCF 3.8 known issues are documented here

To perform online upgrade of vCF, your SDDC Manager appliance should have direct connectivity to internet or via a proxy server. Read More

Troubleshooting NSX Host Preparation Error “Agency Already Exist For Cluster”

13/08/2019 Manish Jha

Yesterday while setting up my lab for NSX-V deployment, I encountered an issue with host preparation and it failed with error “Agency 3d62d2da-5e93-4f57-a87c-063a7af3be28 already exist for cluster Mgmt-Cluster. Delete this agency from EAM database“

I past I had NSX-V configured in my cluster and sometimes back I uninstalled NSX-V components and was playing with NSX-T and later uninstalled NSX-T as well. I guess the uninstall was not clean and left behind lingering item in EAM database. Read More

Deleting Workload Domain in VMware Cloud Foundation

10/07/2019 Manish Jha

In last post of this series, we learnt how to deploy a workload domain via SDDC Manager. In this post we will learn how to delete it.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Physical/Virtual Infra Preparation

2: DNS and IP Pools Requirements for vCF

3: Nested Esxi Host Deployment & Configuration

4: Deploying Management Domain aka SDDC Bringup

5: Workload Domain Deployment

To delete a workload domain, login to SDDC Manager and navigate to Inventory > Workload Domains and from Action menu select “Delete Domain“ Read More

Building a VMware Cloud Foundation Lab: Part 5 – VI Workload Domain Deployment

26/06/201929/06/2019 Manish Jha

In last post of this series we learnt the process of SDDC bringup aka Management Domain deployment. Also we verified we are able to login to SDDC manager. The management domain is integrated in SDDC manager by default during bringup process.

In this post I will walk through steps of deploying a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain. If you are new to vCF and wondering what a workload domain is, then in simpler words its resource cluster where end users will provision their vm’s.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links: Read More