Here is a quick guide to installing and configuring vMA 4.1 into a vSphere 4.1 installation. vMA is a management assistance tool that allows you to more easily manage your hosts or vcenter server. Follow these instructions:
- First download the vMA ovf file from here.
- Open your vSphere client and connect to your vCenter server. Click on the “File” menu and then click “Deploy OVF template…”.
- Click “Browse…” and then locate your downloaded oMA ovf file, click “Next >”.
- Click “Next >”, Agree to the EULA, and then click “Next >”.
- Give the vMA a name, and then select the Data center it will be deployed to. Click “Next >”.
- Select the host or cluster it will run on, and then click “Next >”.
- Select the Data store to place the files on, and then click “Next >”.
- Select your disk provision format, and then click “Next >”.
- Select your network from the drop down list, and then click “Next >”.
- Click Finish.
Once the import is finished we can start the wizard to configure the vMA tool. Open your vSphere client, connect to your vCenter server. Follow these steps:
- Find your vMA VM, open its console and click start.
- The vMA will boot to a prompt asking to use DHCP to assign an IP. Enter “no” and press “Enter”.
- It will now prompt for am IP address, enter an IP address and the press “enter”.
- It will now prompt for a Subnet mask, enter a mask and then press “enter”.
- It will now prompt for a gateway, enter the IP address of your gateway and then press “enter”.
- It will now prompt you twice for your primary and secondary DNS, enter the IP addresses and press “enter” after each.
- It will prompt you for the vMA’s hostname, enter a FQDN and then press “enter”
- Type “yes” to confirm the settings and then press “enter”.
- the vMA vm will now reboot, and when it comes back up it will prompt you twice for a password.
- The VM will now display a screen telling you how to SSH into the box. For now press “Alt” and F2″ to enter the virtual terminal. Login with “vi-admin” and the password you just created.
Before we continue we should make sure that our Active Directory contains a security group called EXACTLY: “ESX Admins” and contains the accounts that we want to have Administrator access to our ESX/ESXi hosts. During the domain join process this group will automatically be granted the Administrator role on each ESX/ESXi host.
Now we need to join the vMA to the active directory domain. If you’re not already logged into the Virtual Terminal on the vMA vm, then follow setup 10 above and then perform the following:
- Enter the command “
sudo domainjoin-cli join <your domain fqdn> <your AD domain username>” press “enter” - The vMA will now prompt you for the password for the “vi-admin” account created on the vMA. Enter it and then press “enter”.
- The vMA will now prompt you for the password for the Active Directory user account you are trying to use to join it to the domain, enter the password and then press “enter”.
- You should now receive an error about the PAM module, and the word “SUCCESS” at the bottom of the screen. You’ve successfully joined to the Active Directory domain.
If we’ve not already joined our ESXi servers to the Active Directory domain now is a good time to do so. This is not a required step, but it will allow us to cut down on the amount of usernames and passwords we’ll need to use to configure our ESXi hosts when using the vMA. Follow these steps:
- Open the vSphere client and connect to your vCenter Server.
- Navigate to “Inventory” and then “Hosts and Clusters”.
- Select the first ESXi host, and then click on the “Configuration” tab.
- Click on “Authentication Services” and then click on “Properties…”.
- Change the “User Directory Service” from “Local Authentication” to “Active Directory”.
- Enter your domain name in the box titled “Domain:” and then click “Join Domain”.
- When prompted enter your Active Directory name and password, and then Click “OK”.
- Click the “Permissions” tab.
- Right Click and select “Add Permission…”.
- Change the drop down box to “Administrator” and then click the button titled “Add…”.
- Highlight users and/or groups that should be added to the list of local administrators on your ESXi server. Click the button titled “Add”. Click “OK”.
- Click “OK” again to add the permission.
The next thing we need to do is configure our vMA with a list of servers to manage, and which authentication type to use to manage them. Follow these steps:
- Open the console for your vMA
- If you’re not already logged in, log in as “vi-admin”
- Enter the following command to add your servers “
vifp addserver <host's FQDN> --authpolicy adauth” and then press “enter” - When prompted for a username enter <domain>\<username> of a user who was granted administrator permissions on that ESXi host. Make sure the host is not in standbymode, otherwise you’ll get an error.
- repeat this step for each host and the vcenter server.
Now that we’ve got all of our servers in the list we can issue commands to them by appending the following to each command --server <Host's FQDN> or if you get tired of having to specify the server each time you can set which server to use by issuing the following command: vifptarget -s <host's FQDN>. To clear the currently selected server issue the following command to the vMA: vifptarget -c . Also, if you get tired of having to type your Username and password in each time you can just append the following flag to the end of each command: --passthroughauth