Author: Pradeep Adapa

Install and Configure vRealize Suite Life Cycle Manager 1.2

Pradeep Adapa3 Comments

This post details the installation and configuration of the vRealize Suite Life Cycle Manager 1.2 which was recently released by VMware to automatically provision vRA components as part of their Cloud initiative.

First, Download the Life Cycle Manager ova from the vRealize Suite 2017 components and deploy it using the vCenter web client

vRLCM_Installation01

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Select Enable Content Management option to enable content management.

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Provide the Hostname, default gateway, network IP address, subnet mask, DNS servers and the domain names in this window and click Next to finalize the deployment of the appliance.
vRLCM_Installation10
Click Finish to finalize the settings and to deploy the Life Cycle Manager Appliance

Once the vm has been deployed and powered ON, you will have to go to a web browser to configure the appliance.

https://IP_Address_of_the_Appliance/vrlcm

vRLCM_Configuration01

use the following credentials to login into the life cycle manager web UI

username: admin@localhost

password: vmware

vRLCM_Configuration02

 

vRLCM_Configuration03
The first thing you get after logging into the web UI is to update the root password

vRLCM_Configuration04

Click start to get started with the Life Cycle Manager

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Once you click Next, it will say Done!

Now, we will create a New Environment in the lab

Click on Create Environment option to get started

Once you click on Create Environment option, you will be taken to a tab where it mentions that you will need to take care of a few things before you create the environment.

vRLCM_Configuration10.png

Let us take care of the Product Binaries first.

Click on Product Binaries option on the tab

vRLCM_Configuration11

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I have used my VMware portal credentials to get the product binaries as I couldn’t get the local and NFS to work to get the product OVA’s.

Once you add the product binaries, let’s go and create a Certificate

vRLCM_Configuration12

vRLCM_Configuration13

Once these two pre-requisites are done, Let us move ahead …

On the main page, click on the Datacenters option on the left-hand side to create a Datacenter before we create the environment

vRLCM_Configuration15

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Click on Add Data Center to provide a name for the Datacenter

vRLCM_Configuration17

Next, we add the vCenter server

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Now, Let us go ahead and create an Environment

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Accept the EULA Agreement by scrolling down, once you accept it, the NEXT button will appear

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Provide all the required information. I have provided an existing SQL server and IAAS server, I have used 1 IAAS server for DEM Worker, Orchestrator, Proxy service
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Click on RUN PRE CHECK option to perform the pre-checks before it deploys the environment

vRLCM_Configuration30

In this pre-check, you could get a validation failure which will need to be rectified before you run the pre-check again. its like shown in the picture below

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Once you rectify the issue, run the pre-check again

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Once the pre-check comes back clean, click on Next to move ahead

vRLCM_Configuration34

 

Click Submit and the life cycle manager will do the rest.

to check the progress, you can click on Requests icon on the left side of the page and clicking on in progress as the pic below

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This process will take a long time … go, get some tea/coffee and it will still be deploying the environment …

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This shows how to Install and configure vRealize Life Cycle Management and to create a vRA 7.4 environment.

 

 

SQL Connectivity Issue with vRA 7.4

Pradeep AdapaLeave a comment

Hello Peeps, Recently I was configuring vRA 7.4 at a customer’s place and came across an issue where the vRA appliance tries to talk to the external SQL server and fails with an error.

Here is the error:

SQL_Config_Issue01

After digging into the logs on both vRA and on the SQL server, here is what was determined as the issue

The SQL server has TLS 1.0 disabled and the vRA appliance was trying to communicate to the SQL server using TLS 1.0 instead of TLS 1.2 as the client has disabled TLS 1.0 on all its windows servers.

SQL_Config_Issue02

Troubleshooting steps tried:

Tried enabling TLS 1.0 and its Ciphers on the SQL server with no success

Checked with the Firewall team and they said that there is no firewall between the vRA appliance and the SQL server

Tried this in a different environment and it worked fine, just doesn’t work in this particular environment.

Conclusion:

 

Looks like the issue was with the SQL server and its Service Pack. SQL Server 2012 needs SP3 or higher to accept TLS 1.2 protocol. As soon as I upgraded my SQL server to SQL 2012 SP4, the communication worked fine and the vRA appliance was able to talk to the SQL server!!

Hope this helps in case you come across this issue.

Add External PSC 6.0 U2 to Active Directory Domain

Pradeep AdapaLeave a comment

I have been thinking of writing this post for a while and here you go…

In vSphere 6.0 U2, you can have an External PSC or an Embedded PSC. The below process is to add an External PSC to the Active Directory Domain.

Login into the vCenter server, go to Administration tab, go to System Configuration –> Nodes and click on the PSC node you want to add to the domain.

psc01_Domain_setting
Click on the node, go to Manage tab, click on Active Directory and click on Join button
psc01_domain_join01
Provide the Domain name and its credentials (It could be a read-only service account in the domain) to join the PSC to the domain

psc01_domain_join02

once credentials are provided, click OK to proceed.

Note that the only way for you to know that this process is complete is that you get no error and there is no entry in the recent tasks tab in the vSphere web client. If that is the case then the domain add is successful.

Now, you will need to reboot the PSC

psc01_domain_after_psc01_reboot
Once the PSC is rebooted, you can go back into the vCenter server and to the node and you can see that this node (PSC) is now added to the domain.

In a similar way, you can add the remaining PSC’s to the domain and finally, you will need to add the Identity source to the vCenter server itself under single sign-on

 

Install and Configure vSphere Data Protection (VDP) 6.1.8

Pradeep Adapa1 Comment

In this post, I will be installing and configuring vSphere Data Protection 6.1.8 in vCenter 6.5 Environment

first, login into the vCenter 6.5 web client (flash) and Deploy the ova template and select the VDP.ova file to deploy.

select_vdp_ova_file

ova_template_install_01

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Select the Storage (Datastore) you want to deploy this appliance in and click Next
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Select the Network where you want to Deploy this appliance and click Next
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Provide the Network details such as DNS servers, IP address, Subnet mask, the default gateway of the appliance and click Next

Check all the information entered and click finish for the VM to be deployed in the environment.

Once the appliance is deployed, power in ON

configure_vdp_01

Once the appliance is powered on, go to the web browser to https://Appliance_IP_Address_or_FQDN:8543/vdp-configure to start the configuration of VDP

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In the Web UI, login as root and the default password is changeme , login into the web UI and change the root password

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Check the Network settings as these settings will be automatically populated from the values you set while deploying the appliance

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Provide a new root password for the VDP appliance
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Once you enter the details of the External PSC under SSO FQDN you can hit ‘Test Connection’

vdp_vcenter_registration_02

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We now create new storage as this is the first VDP appliance being deployed

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Click Yes to start the configuration
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Once the process completes, the appliance will restart and you can get into the main Web UI
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Use this URL to get into the VDP Configuration Web UI

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vdp_main_UI_vCenter_Home
This is the UI you see when you login into the vCenter Web Client and click on VDP menu item

SSO Server test failed when Configuring VDP 6.1.8 during vCenter Registration

Pradeep AdapaLeave a comment

Recently, I came across an issue while configuring a new instance of VDP 6.1.8 appliance while performing vCenter Registration to the vCenter appliance 6.5 with an external Platform Services Controller.

below is the error message I have been getting

vdp_error_vcenter_registration

I have provided the administrator account user credentials to the VCSA (vCenter server) with the default ports but still received the error.

Upon some deep troubleshooting, found out that the SSO server is the Platform Services Controller (PSC) since my environment had an external PSC and here is how you resolve this issue:

De-select the checkbox “Use vCenter for SSO authentication”, and add the Platform Services Controller hostname/IP in the new SSO entry line.

vdp_vcenter_registration_01

Now, you can test the connection and it will be a success

vdp_vcenter_registration_02

This is how the issue was resolved. Hope it helps someone out there.

This is with VDP version 6.1.8 connecting to VCSA 6.5 with External PSC

PSC’s fail to join Domain after Upgrade from vSphere 6.0 U2 to 6.0 U2b or 6.0U3b

Pradeep AdapaLeave a comment

Recently, I have come across an issue with the PSC’s not joining to the domain (They disconnected from the domain automatically) after upgrading the vCenter components (PSC01, PSC02 and vCenter windows server) from 6.0 Update 2 build 3634791 to 6.0 Update 2a build 4632154 or to 6.0 Update 3b build 5326079. This issue occurred as the windows domain controller was 2012 R2 and SMB 2 was the communication protocol to the domain controller. we have to enable SMB 2 on the PSC’s for them to communicate to the domain after the Upgrade.

here is the process to enable SMB2 on the PSC’s —

login to PSC01 and run the following command to check the values

/opt/likewise/bin/lwregshell list_values '[HKEY_THIS_MACHINE\Services\lwio\Parameters\Drivers\rdr]'

check the value of “Smb2Enabled”, this value will be 0, we will need to change it to 1 to enable it.

change SMB2 to be Enabled

/opt/likewise/bin/lwregshell set_value '[HKEY_THIS_MACHINE\Services\lwio\Parameters\Drivers\rdr]' Smb2Enabled 1

Once enabled, we need to restart the service lwio

/opt/likewise/bin/lwsm restart lwio

Check the values again —

/opt/likewise/bin/lwregshell list_values '[HKEY_THIS_MACHINE\Services\lwio\Parameters\Drivers\rdr]'

This time the value of “Smb2Enabled” will be 1.

This process is repeated for PSC02 as well and once this is done on both the PSC’s, you can go ahead and add the PSC’s to the domain and the function works !!

The process to change the SMB value on ESXi 6.0 is a little different and here are the commands —

Check values —

/usr/lib/vmware/likewise/bin/lwregshell list_values ‘[HKEY_THIS_MACHINE\Services\lwio\Parameters\Drivers\rdr]’

Change SMB2 to be enabled

/usr/lib/vmware/likewise/bin/lwregshell set_value ‘[HKEY_THIS_MACHINE\Services\lwio\Parameters\Drivers\rdr]’ SMB2Enabled 1

Restart lwio service

/usr/lib/vmware/likewise/bin/lwsm restart lwio

 

Reset root password on vCenter PSC 6.0 U2

Pradeep AdapaLeave a comment

Resetting the root password on a Platform Services Controller (PSC) 6.0 U2 is taken from the following link —

Link to Reset PSC root Password

The above website clearly mentions on how to use the SUSE Linux Rescue CD to create a new root password and update it in the /etc/shadow file on the PSC itself and after reboot you will be able to get into the PSC with the new password.

Hope this helps !!

Recovery Plan Steps in SRM 6.1 are skipped when the plan is initiated

Pradeep AdapaLeave a comment

Recently I came across an issue where SRM 6.1 skipped few steps during a Recovery Plan failover from Recovery site to Protected Site. I had to dig into the SRM settings to find out why and I found that I didn’t configure the Custom IP network rules on the Recovery site so the recovery plan skipped customizing IP address on the recovered VMs back in Protected Site.

here is the message as shown:

SRM_Recoveryplan_Error_Skipped

Explanation —

I have Two sites

Protected Site — NC

Recovery Site — Dallas

I have failed over from NC to Dallas fine because I put in the Network IP rules in the site NC under SRM –> Sites –> NC –> Manage –> Network Mappings, settings as shown:

Site_Network_Mappings_1

As shown above, I have created the network IP Customization rule in Site_NC but forgot to do it in Site_Dallas. That is the reason why when the failback from Dallas to NC was initiated it skipped the IP customization of the VMs during the Recovery process.

NOTE: Make sure that you configure the Network IP rules on both the Protected and Recovery sites so that the IP customization is applied on the VMs at both the sites.

Peer Client db version is lower than local – UCS FI cluster error

Pradeep Adapa3 Comments

My colleagues have been facing this particular error recently when working on the Converged Infrastructure (Vblock, VxBlock etc) that when trying to check the FI Cluster state, it gives an error ” Peer Client db version is lower than local, self version: 3, peer version: 1″ when SSH into the FI Cluster IP address. The screen shot is as shown below:

ucs_ha_error

There are at least two resolutions which have worked so far with this kind of error on the FI Cluster

Resolutions

  1. Reboot the Peer FI (In the above case it was FI B (Subordinate)) so the database on FI B sync up with the FI A, Once FI B comes up, it will be in sync with FI A and the cluster state will be HA ready.
  2. SSH to the cluster IP, connect local-mgmt A (whichever is the primary), then do Cluster lead B (or whichever is subordinate), This will Failover the UCS Management service from Primary to Subordinate. This is a less Impactful method than the first method.
  3. restart pmon service on the peer FI (A/B) and this could fix the issue

Let me know if you come across any solutions to this issue.