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vCenter Server Installation and Setup

vCenter Server

Installation and Setup

17 APR 2018

VMware vSphere 6.7

vCenter Server 6.7

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 2

You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware website at:

https://docs.vmware.com/

If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to

docfeedback@vmware.com

VMware, Inc.

3401 Hillview Ave.

Palo Alto, CA 94304

www.vmware.com

Contents

About vCenter Server Installation and Setup 5

1Introduction to vSphere Installation and Setup 6

Overview of the vSphere Installation and Setup Process 6

vCenter Server Components and Services 9

Overview of the vCenter Server Appliance 11

vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller Deployment Types 12

Understanding vSphere Domains, Domain Names, and Sites 16

Deployment Topologies with External Platform Services Controller Instances and High Availability 17

vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode 19

2Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller

Appliance 22

System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller

Appliance 23

Preparing for Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller

Appliance 32

Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance 35

GUI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance 36

CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance 60

3Installing vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller on Windows 78

vCenter Server for Windows Requirements 79

Preparing for Installing vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller on Windows 89

Required Information for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller on Windows 111

Installing vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller on Windows 113

4File-Based Backup and Restore of vCenter Server Appliance 121

Considerations and Limitations for File-Based Backup and Restore 122

Schedule a File-Based Backup 125

Manually Back up a vCenter Server Appliance by Using the vCenter Server Appliance

Management Interface 126

Restore a vCenter Server Appliance from a File-Based Backup 128

5Image-Based Backup and Restore of a vCenter Server Environment 134

Considerations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup and Restore 135

Restore a vCenter Server Image-based Environment 138

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6After You Install vCenter Server or Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance 143

Install the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in 144

Collect vCenter Server Log Files 145

Repoint vCenter Server to Another External Platform Services Controller in the Same Domain 145

Repoint vCenter Server to External Platform Services Controller in a Different Domain 147

Reconfigure a Standalone vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller to a

vCenter Server with an External Platform Services Controller 155

7Troubleshooting vCenter Server Installation or Deployment 159

Collecting Logs for Troubleshooting a vCenter Server Installation or Upgrade 159

Attempt to Install a Platform Services Controller After a Prior Installation Failure 161

Microsoft SQL Database Set to Unsupported Compatibility Mode Causes vCenter Server

Installation or Upgrade to Fail 162

8Uninstall vCenter Server 163

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 4

About vCenter Server Installation and

Setup

vCenter Server Installation and Setup describes how to install and configure VMware vCenter Server®,

and deploy the VMware vCenter® Server Appliance™.

vSphere Installation and Setup is intended for experienced administrators who want to install and

configure vCenter Server, and deploy and configure the vCenter Server Appliance.

This information is written for experienced Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with

virtual machine technology and data center operations. The information about using the Image Builder

and VMware vSphere® Auto Deploy™ is written for administrators who have experience with Microsoft

PowerShell and VMware vSphere® PowerCLI™.

vSphere Web Client and vSphere Client

Instructions in this guide reflect the vSphere Client (an HTML5-based GUI). You can also use the

instructions to perform most of the tasks by using the vSphere Web Client (a Flex-based GUI).

Note In vSphere 6.7, most of the vSphere Web Client functionality is implemented in the vSphere Client.

For an up-to-date list of the unsupported functionality, see Functionality Updates for the vSphere Client.

VMware Technical Publications Glossary

VMware Technical Publications provides a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to you. For

definitions of terms as they are used in VMware technical documentation, go to

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.

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Introduction to vSphere

Installation and Setup 1

vSphere 6.7 provides various options for installation and setup. To ensure a successful vSphere

deployment, understand the installation and setup options, and the sequence of tasks.

The two core components of vSphere are ESXi and vCenter Server. ESXi is the virtualization platform on

which you can create and run virtual machines and virtual appliances. vCenter Server is a service that

acts as a central administrator for ESXi hosts connected in a network. vCenter Server lets you pool and

manage the resources of multiple hosts.

You can install vCenter Server on a Windows virtual machine or physical server, or deploy the

vCenter Server Appliance. The vCenter Server Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine

optimized for running vCenter Server and the vCenter Server components. You can deploy the

vCenter Server Appliance on ESXi hosts 6.0 or later, or on vCenter Server instances 6.0 or later.

Starting with vSphere 6.0, all prerequisite services for running vCenter Server and the vCenter Server

components are bundled in the VMware Platform Services Controller™. You can deploy vCenter Server

with an embedded or external Platform Services Controller, but you must always install or deploy the

Platform Services Controller before installing or deploying vCenter Server.

For detailed information about the ESXi installation process, see VMware ESXi Installation and Setup .

This chapter includes the following topics:

nOverview of the vSphere Installation and Setup Process

nvCenter Server Components and Services

nOverview of the vCenter Server Appliance

nvCenter Server and Platform Services Controller Deployment Types

nUnderstanding vSphere Domains, Domain Names, and Sites

nDeployment Topologies with External Platform Services Controller Instances and High Availability

nvCenter Enhanced Linked Mode

Overview of the vSphere Installation and Setup Process

vSphere is a sophisticated product with multiple components to install and set up. To ensure a successful

vSphere deployment, understand the sequence of tasks required.

Installing vSphere includes the following tasks:

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Figure 1‑1. vSphere Installation and Setup Workﬂow

Start the vSphere

installation and setup

End of the vSphere

installation and setup

Small envrionment with one

vCenter Server Instance

Large envrionment with multiple

vCenter Server Instances

Install ESXi

on at least one host

Set up ESXi

Deploy or install vCenter Server

with an embedded Platform

Services Controller

Client to create and organize

your vCenter Server inventory

Client to create and organize

your vCenter Server inventories

Start the vSphere

installation and setup

End of the vSphere

installation and setup

Install ESXi

on at least one host

Set up ESXi

Deploy or install the Platform

Services Controller instances

in a sequence

Deploy or install the vCenter Server

instances and register them with the

external Platform Services

Controller instances

1 Read the vSphere release notes.

2 Install ESXi.

Note See VMware ESXi Installation and Setup for detailed information about the ESXi installation

process.

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3 Configure the ESXi boot and network settings, the direct console, and other settings. See VMware

ESXi Installation and Setup for information.

4 Consider setting up a syslog server for remote logging, to ensure sufficient disk storage for log files.

Setting up logging on a remote host is especially important for hosts with limited local storage. See

VMware ESXi Installation and Setup

5 Determine the vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller deployment model that is suitable for

your environment.

vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller deployment is suitable for small-scale

environments. vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller deployment is suitable for

environments with several vCenter Server instances. See vCenter Server and Platform Services

Controller Deployment Types.

6 Deploy or install vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller.

You can deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance on an ESXi

host or vCenter Server instance, or you can install vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller

on a Windows virtual machine or physical server.

You can deploy or install multiple vCenter Server instances connected in Enhanced Linked Mode

configuration by registering them to a common or different joined Platform Services Controller

instances.

nDeploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance.

1 Review the topics in System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform

Services Controller Appliance and verify that your system meets the hardware and software

requirements for deploying the appliance.

2 Determine the deployment method to use.

You can use the GUI method to deploy the appliance interactively. You can use the CLI

method to perform a silent deployment of the appliance. See GUI Deployment of the vCenter

Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance and CLI Deployment of the

vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance.

3 Use the topic Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance or Platform

Services Controller Appliance to create a worksheet with the information you need for the

GUI deployment, or use the topic Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment

to create your JSON templates for the CLI deployment.

4 Deploy the appliance.

nInstall vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller on a Windows virtual machine or physical

server.

1 Verify that your system meets the hardware and software requirements for installing

vCenter Server. See vCenter Server for Windows Requirements.

2 (Optional) Set up an external vCenter Server database. See Preparing vCenter Server

Databases for Install.

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For an environment with up to 20 hosts and 200 virtual machines, you can use the bundled

PostgreSQL database. For production and large scale environments, set up an external

database, because the migration from the embedded PostgreSQL database to an external

database is not a trivial manual process.

3 Create a worksheet with the information you need for installation. See Required Information

for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller on Windows.

4 Install vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller,

Platform Services Controller, or vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller.

7 Connect to vCenter Server from the vSphere Web Client. See Chapter 6 After You Install vCenter

Server or Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance.

8 Configure the vCenter Server Appliance or vCenter Server instance. See vCenter Server Appliance

Configuration and vCenter Server and Host Management.

vCenter Server Components and Services

vCenter Server provides a centralized platform for management, operation, resource provisioning, and

performance evaluation of virtual machines and hosts.

When you install vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller, or deploy the

vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller, vCenter Server, the

vCenter Server components, and the services included in the Platform Services Controller are deployed

on the same system.

When you install vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller, or deploy the

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller, vCenter Server and the

vCenter Server components are deployed on one system, and the services included in the

Platform Services Controller are deployed on another system.

The following components are included in the vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance installations:

nThe VMware Platform Services Controller group of infrastructure services contains vCenter Single

Sign-On, License service, Lookup Service, and VMware Certificate Authority.

nThe vCenter Server group of services contains vCenter Server, vSphere Web Client, vSphere Auto

Deploy, and vSphere ESXi Dump Collector. vCenter Server for Windows also contains the VMware

vSphere Syslog Collector. The vCenter Server Appliance also contains the VMware vSphere Update

Manager Extension service.

Note Starting with vSphere 6.5, all vCenter Server services and some Platform Services Controller

services run as child processes of the VMware Service Lifecycle Manager service.

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Services Installed with VMware Platform Services Controller

vCenter Single Sign-On The vCenter Single Sign-On authentication service provides secure

authentication services to the vSphere software components. By using

vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere components communicate with each

other through a secure token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring

each component to authenticate a user separately with a directory service

like Active Directory. vCenter Single Sign-On constructs an internal security

domain (for example, vsphere.local) where the vSphere solutions and

components are registered during the installation or upgrade process,

providing an infrastructure resource. vCenter Single Sign-On can

authenticate users from its own internal users and groups, or it can connect

to trusted external directory services such as Microsoft Active Directory.

Authenticated users can then be assigned registered solution-based

permissions or roles within a vSphere environment.

vCenter Single Sign-On is required with vCenter Server.

vSphere License

Service

The vSphere License service provides common license inventory and

management capabilities to all vCenter Server systems that are connected

to a Platform Services Controller or multiple linked

Platform Services Controllers.

VMware Certificate

Authority

VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) provisions each ESXi host with a

signed certificate that has VMCA as the root certificate authority, by default.

Provisioning occurs when the ESXi host is added to vCenter Server

explicitly or as part of the ESXi host installation process. All ESXi

certificates are stored locally on the host.

For information about all Platform Services Controller services and capabilities, see Platform Services

Controller Administration.

Services Installed with vCenter Server

These additional components are installed silently when you install vCenter Server. The components

cannot be installed separately as they do not have their own installers.

PostgreSQL A bundled version of the VMware distribution of PostgreSQL database for

vSphere and vCloud Hybrid Services.

vSphere Web Client The vSphere Web Client lets you connect to vCenter Server instances by

using a Web browser, so that you can manage your vSphere infrastructure.

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vSphere Client The new user interface that lets you connect to vCenter Server instances

by using a Web browser. The terminology, topology, and workflow are

closely aligned with the same aspects and elements of the

vSphere Web Client user interface.

vSphere ESXi Dump

Collector

The vCenter Server support tool. You can configure ESXi to save the

VMkernel memory to a network server, rather than to a disk, when the

system encounters a critical failure. The vSphere ESXi Dump Collector

collects such memory dumps over the network.

VMware vSphere

Syslog Collector

The vCenter Server on Windows support tool that enables network logging

and combining of logs from multiple hosts. You can use the vSphere Syslog

Collector to direct ESXi system logs to a server on the network, rather than

to a local disk. The recommended maximum number of supported hosts to

collect logs from is 30. For information about configuring vSphere Syslog

Collector, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2021652.

The vCenter Server Appliance uses the built-in Rsyslog service of the Linux

OS. For information how to redirect the log files to another machine with the

Appliance Management Interface, see vCenter Server Appliance

Configuration.

vSphere Auto Deploy The vCenter Server support tool that can provision hundreds of physical

hosts with ESXi software. You can specify the image to deploy and the

hosts to provision with the image. Optionally, you can specify host profiles

to apply to the hosts, and a vCenter Server location (folder or cluster) for

each host.

VMware vSphere

Update Manager

Extension

Update Manager enables centralized, automated patch and version

management for VMware vSphere and offers support for VMware ESXi

hosts, virtual machines, and virtual appliances. The VMware vSphere

Update Manager Extension is an optional service of only the

vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.

Overview of the vCenter Server Appliance

The vCenter Server Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine that is optimized for

running vCenter Server and the associated services.

The vCenter Server Appliance reduces the deployment time of vCenter Server and the associated

services, and provides a low-cost alternative to the Windows-based vCenter Server installation.

The vCenter Server Appliance package contains the following software:

nProject Photon OS® 1.0

nThe Platform Services Controller group of infrastructure services

nThe vCenter Server group of services

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nPostgreSQL

nVMware vSphere Update Manager Extension

Version 6.7 of the vCenter Server Appliance is deployed with virtual hardware version 10, which supports

64 virtual CPUs per virtual machine in ESXi.

The vCenter Server Appliance uses the embedded PostgreSQL database that has the scalability of up to

2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines. During the deployment, you can choose the

vCenter Server Appliance size for your vSphere environment size and the storage size for your database

requirements.

Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server uses the VMware vSphere Update Manager Extension

service. An external VMware Update Manager instance on Windows is no longer required for vSphere

centralized automated patch and version management. For information about the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller services, see vCenter Server Components and Services.

Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server Appliance supports high availability. For information about

configuring vCenter Server Appliance in a vCenter High Availability cluster, see vSphere Availability.

Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance

support file-based backup and restore. For information backing up and restoring, see Chapter 4 File-

Based Backup and Restore of vCenter Server Appliance.

For information about the vCenter Server Appliance maximums, see the Configuration Maximums

documentation.

vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller

Deployment Types

You can deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or install vCenter Server for Windows with an embedded or

external Platform Services Controller. You can also deploy a Platform Services Controller as an appliance

or install it on Windows. If necessary, you can use a mixed operating systems environment.

Before you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or install vCenter Server for Windows, you must

determine the deployment model that is suitable for your environment. For each deployment or

installation, you must select one of the three deployment types.

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Table 1‑1. vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller Deployment Types

Deployment Type Description

vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller All services that are bundled with the

Platform Services Controller are deployed together with the

vCenter Server services on the same virtual machine or physical

server.

Platform Services Controller Only the services that are bundled with the

Platform Services Controller are deployed on the virtual machine

or physical server.

vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller

(Requires external Platform Services Controller)

Only the vCenter Server services are deployed on the virtual

machine or physical server.

You must register such a vCenter Server instance with a

Platform Services Controller instance that you previously

deployed or installed.

vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller

Using an embedded Platform Services Controller results in a standalone deployment that has its own

vCenter Single Sign-On domain with a single site. vCenter Server with an embedded

Platform Services Controller is suitable for small environments. You cannot join other vCenter Server or

Platform Services Controller instances to this vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

Figure 1‑2. vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or Physical Server

vCenter Server

Installing vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller has the following advantages:

nThe connection between vCenter Server and the Platform Services Controller is not over the network,

and vCenter Server is not prone to outages caused by connectivity and name resolution issues

between vCenter Server and the Platform Services Controller.

nIf you install vCenter Server on Windows virtual machines or physical servers, you need fewer

Windows licenses.

nYou manage fewer virtual machines or physical servers.

Installing vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller has the following

disadvantages:

nThere is a Platform Services Controller for each product which might be more than required and

which consumes more resources.

nThe model is suitable only for small-scale environments.

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You can configure the vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller in

vCenter High Availability configuration. For information, see vSphere Availability.

Note After you deploy or install vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller, you can

reconfigure the deployment type and switch to vCenter Server with an external

Platform Services Controller.

See Reconfigure a Standalone vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller to a

vCenter Server with an External Platform Services Controller.

Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server with an External

Platform Services Controller

When you deploy or install a Platform Services Controller instance, you can create a vCenter Single Sign-

On domain or join an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain. Joined Platform Services Controller

instances replicate their infrastructure data, such as authentication and licensing information, and can

span multiple vCenter Single Sign-On sites. For information, see Understanding vSphere Domains,

Domain Names, and Sites.

For information about managing the Platform Services Controller services, see Platform Services

Controller Administration.

You can register multiple vCenter Server instances with one common external

Platform Services Controller instance. The vCenter Server instances assume the vCenter Single Sign-On

site of the Platform Services Controller instance with which they are registered. All vCenter Server

instances that are registered with one common or different joined Platform Services Controller instances

are connected in Enhanced Linked Mode.

See Enhanced Linked Mode for vCenter Server or vCenter Server Appliance with an External Platform

Services Controller.

Figure 1‑3. Example of Two vCenter Server Instances with a Common External

Platform Services Controller

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or Physical Server

vCenter Server

Virtual Machine or Physical Server

vCenter Server

Virtual Machine or Physical Server

Installing vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller has the following advantages:

nFewer resources consumed by the shared services in the Platform Services Controller instances.

nThe model is suitable for large-scale environments.

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Installing vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller has the following disadvantages:

nThe connection between vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller might have connectivity

and name resolution issues.

nIf you install vCenter Server on Windows virtual machines or physical servers, you need more

Microsoft Windows licenses.

nYou must manage more virtual machines or physical servers.

For information about the Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server maximums, see the

Configuration Maximums documentation.

For information about the deployment topologies and Platform Services Controller high availability, see

Deployment Topologies with External Platform Services Controller Instances and High Availability.

For information about configuring the vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller in vCenter High Availability configuration, see vSphere Availability.

Mixed Operating Systems Environment

A vCenter Server instance installed on Windows can be registered with either a

Platform Services Controller installed on Windows or a Platform Services Controller appliance. A

vCenter Server Appliance can be registered with either a Platform Services Controller installed on

Windows or a Platform Services Controller appliance. Both vCenter Server and the

vCenter Server Appliance can be registered with the same Platform Services Controller.

Figure 1‑4. Example of a Mixed Operating Systems Environment with an External Platform

Services Controller on Windows

Platform Services

Controller on Windows

Windows Virtual Machine

or Physical Server

vCenter Server on Windows

Virtual Machine or Physical Server

vCenter Server Appliance

Virtual Machine

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Figure 1‑5. Example of a Mixed Operating Systems Environment with an External Platform

Services Controller Appliance

Platform Services

Controller Appliance

Virtual Machine

vCenter Server on Windows

Virtual Machine or Physical Server

vCenter Server Appliance

Virtual Machine

Note To ensure easy manageability and maintenance, use only appliances or only Windows installations

of vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller.

Understanding vSphere Domains, Domain Names, and

Sites

Each Platform Services Controller is associated with a vCenter Single Sign-On domain. The domain

name defaults to vsphere.local, but you can change it during installation of the first

Platform Services Controller. The domain determines the local authentication space. You can split a

domain into multiple sites, and assign each Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server instance to a

site. Sites are logical constructs, but usually correspond to geographic location.

Platform Services Controller Domain

When you install a Platform Services Controller, you are prompted to create a vCenter Single Sign-On

domain or join an existing domain.

The domain name is used by the VMware Directory Service (vmdir) for all Lightweight Directory Access

Protocol (LDAP) internal structuring.

With vSphere 6.0 and later, you can give your vSphere domain a unique name. To prevent authentication

conflicts, use a name that is not used by OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, and other directory

services.

Note You cannot change the domain to which a Platform Services Controller or vCenter Server instance

belongs.

After you specify the name of your domain, you can add users and groups. It usually makes more sense

to add an Active Directory or LDAP identity source and allow the users and groups in that identity source

to authenticate. You can also add vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller instances, or other

VMware products, such as vRealize Operations, to the domain.

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Platform Services Controller Sites

You can organize Platform Services Controller domains into logical sites. A site in the VMware Directory

Service is a logical container for grouping Platform Services Controller instances within a vCenter Single

Sign-On domain.

Starting with vSphere 6.5, sites become important. During Platform Services Controller failover, the

vCenter Server instances are affinitized to a different Platform Services Controller in the same site. To

prevent your vCenter Server instances from being affinitized to a Platform Services Controller in a distant

geographic location, you can use multiple sites.

You are prompted for the site name when you install or upgrade a Platform Services Controller. See the

vCenter Server Installation and Setup documentation.

Deployment Topologies with External

Platform Services Controller Instances and High

Availability

To ensure Platform Services Controller high availability in external deployments, you must install or

deploy at least two joined Platform Services Controller instances in your vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

When you use a third-party load balancer, you can ensure an automatic failover without downtime.

Platform Services Controller with a Load Balancer

Figure 1‑6. Example of a Load Balanced Pair of Platform Services Controller Instances

Load Balancer

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

You can use a third-party load balancer per site to configure Platform Services Controller high availability

with automatic failover for this site. For information about the maximum number of

Platform Services Controller instances behind a load balancer, see the Configuration Maximums

documentation.

Important To configure Platform Services Controller high availability behind a load balancer, the

Platform Services Controller instances must be of the same operating system type. Mixed operating

systems Platform Services Controller instances behind a load balancer are unsupported.

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The vCenter Server instances are connected to the load balancer. When a Platform Services Controller

instance stops responding, the load balancer automatically distributes the load among the other functional

Platform Services Controller instances without downtime.

Platform Services Controller with Load Balancers Across vCenter

Single Sign-On Sites

Figure 1‑7. Example of Two Load Balanced Pairs of Platform Services Controller Instances

Across Two Sites

Load Balancer

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Site 1

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Load Balancer

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Site 2

Your vCenter Single Sign-On domain might span multiple sites. To ensure Platform Services Controller

high availability with automatic failover throughout the domain, you must configure a separate load

balancer in each site.

Platform Services Controller with No Load Balancer

Figure 1‑8. Example of Two Joined Platform Services Controller Instances with No a Load

Balancer

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

When you join two or more Platform Services Controller instances in the same site with no load balancer,

you configure Platform Services Controller high availability with a manual failover for this site.

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When a Platform Services Controller instance stops responding, you must manually fail over the

vCenter Server instances that are registered to it. You fail over the instances by repointing them to other

functional Platform Services Controller instances within the same site. See Repoint vCenter Server to

Another External Platform Services Controller in the Same Domain.

Note If your vCenter Single Sign-On domain includes three or more Platform Services Controller

instances, you can manually create a ring topology. A ring topology ensures Platform Services Controller

reliability when one of the instances fails. To create a ring topology, run the /usr/lib/vmware-

vmdir/bin/vdcrepadmin -f createagreement command against the first and last

Platform Services Controller instance that you have deployed.

Platform Services Controller with No Load Balancer Across

vCenter Single Sign-On Sites

Figure 1‑9. Example of Two Joined Pairs of Platform Services Controller Instances Across

Two Sites with No Load Balancer

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Virtual Machine or

Physical Server

Site 1 Site 2

Your vCenter Single Sign-On domain might span multiple sites. When no load balancer is available, you

can manually repoint vCenter Server from a failed to a functional Platform Services Controller within the

same site. See Repoint vCenter Server to Another External Platform Services Controller in the Same

Domain.

vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode

vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode allows you to log in to any single instance of vCenter Server Appliance

or vCenter Server and view and manage the inventories of all the vCenter Server systems in the group.

You can join up to ten vCenter Server Appliance systems and eight vCenter Server systems with vCenter

Enhanced Linked Mode.

You can create a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode group only during the deployment of vCenter Server

Appliance or installation of vCenter Server. You cannot create a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode group

after you install vCenter Server or after you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance.

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vCenter Embedded Linked Mode for a vCenter Server Appliance

with Embedded Platform Services Controller

vCenter Embedded Linked Mode is enhanced linked mode support for vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller.

With vCenter Embedded Linked Mode, you can connect a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller together to form a domain. vCenter Embedded Linked Mode is not supported

for Windows vCenter Server installations. vCenter Embedded Linked Mode is suitable for most

deployments.

Other features of vCenter Embedded Linked Mode include:

nNo external Platform Services Controller, providing a more simplified domain architecture than

enhanced linked mode.

nA simplified backup and restore process.

nA simplified HA process, removing the need for load balancers.

nUp to ten vCenter Server Appliances can be linked together using vCenter Embedded Linked Mode

and displayed in a single inventory view.

nFor a vCenter High Availability (vCenter HA) cluster, three nodes are considered one logical

vCenter Server node. This represents ten times the vCenter HA clusters in a vCenter Embedded

Linked Mode for a total of 30 VMs.

Figure 1‑10. Embedded Linked Mode

Platform Services

Controller

Appliance

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Appliance

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Appliance

vCenter Server

Platform Services

Controller

Appliance

vCenter Server

Note Embedded linked mode is not supported for Windows vCenter Server installations.

Joining a vCenter Embedded Linked Mode Domain

You can join a vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller to another embedded node

during deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance.

For example, suppose you have two vCenter Servers with embedded Platform Services Controller

systems.

If you are deploying the vCenter Server Appliances with the UI Installer:

1 For Appliance 1, deploy the vCenter Server Appliance as an instance on ESXi Host 1. Synchronize

the time settings with ESXi Host 1.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 20

2 For Appliance 2, deploy the vCenter Server Appliance as an instance on ESXi Host 1 and configure

the time settings so that Appliance 2 are synchronized with ESXi Host 1. In stage 2 you select to join

the vCenter Single Sign-On server of the deployed appliance on Machine 1. For specific instructions,

see Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded Platform

Services Controller.

If you are deploying the vCenter Server Appliances with the CLI:

1 Configure the JSON configuration template embedded_vCSA_on_VC.json (or

embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json) for Appliance 1 as an instance on ESXi Host 1. See Prepare Your

JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment for specific instructions on preparing the JSON

configuraiton file.

2 Deploy Appliance 1 by running the vcsa-cli-installer command. See Deploy a vCenter Server

Appliance or Platform Services Controller Appliance by Using the CLI for instructions.

3 Configure the JSON configuration template embedded_vCSA_replication_on_VC.json for

Appliance 2 as an instance on ESXi Host 1. Enter the hostname of the first embedded node in the

replication_partner_hostname field in the sso section.

4 Deploy Appliance 2 by running the vcsa-cli-installer command on the

embedded_vCSA_replication_on_VC.json file.

Enhanced Linked Mode for vCenter Server or vCenter Server

Appliance with an External Platform Services Controller

Enhanced Linked Mode connects multiple vCenter Server systems together by using one or more

Platform Services Controllers.

Enhanced Linked Mode lets you view and search across all linked vCenter Server systems and replicate

roles, permissions, licenses, policies, and tags.

When you install vCenter Server or deploy the vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller, you must first install the Platform Services Controller. During installation of

the Platform Services Controller, you can select whether to create a vCenter Single Sign-On domain or

join an existing domain. You can select to join an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain if you have

already installed or deployed a Platform Services Controller instance and have created a vCenter Single

Sign-On domain. When you join an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain, the infrastructure data

between the existing Platform Services Controller and the new Platform Services Controller is replicated.

With Enhanced Linked Mode, you can connect not only vCenter Server systems running on Windows but

also many vCenter Server Appliances. You can also have an environment where multiple vCenter Server

systems and vCenter Server Appliances are linked together.

If you install vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller, you first must deploy the

Platform Services Controller on one virtual machines or physical server and then deploy vCenter Server

on another virtual machine or physical server. While installing vCenter Server, you must select an existing

external Platform Services Controller. You cannot select an existing Platform Services Controller that is a

part of an embedded installation. For more information about the supported topologies, see vCenter

Server and Platform Services Controller Deployment Types.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 21

Deploying the

vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller

Appliance 2

You can deploy the vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded or external Platform Services Controller

to manage your vSphere environment. You can deploy a Platform Services Controller appliance and

Platform Services Controller appliance.

You can deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance on an ESXi host

5.5 or later, or on an ESXi host or DRS cluster from the inventory of a vCenter Server instance 5.5 or

later.

For information about the software included in the vCenter Server Appliance 6.7, see Overview of the

vCenter Server Appliance.

For information about the software and hardware requirements for deploying the

vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance, see System Requirements for the

vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance.

The vCenter Server Appliance installer contains executable files for GUI and CLI deployments, which you

can use alternatively.

nThe GUI deployment is a two stage process. The first stage is a deployment wizard that deploys the

OVA file of the appliance on the target ESXi host or vCenter Server instance. After the OVA

deployment finishes, you are redirected to the second stage of the process that sets up and starts the

services of the newly deployed appliance.

nThe CLI deployment method involves running a CLI command against a JSON file that you previously

prepared. The CLI installer parses the configuration parameters and their values from the JSON file

and generates an OVF Tool command that automatically deploys and sets up the appliance.

Important For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must deploy the

replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful deployment of all

Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent deployments of multiple

vCenter Server appliances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

The vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance have the following default user

names:

VMware, Inc. 22

User Name Description

root Use this user name to log in to the appliance operating system and the Appliance

Management Interface.

You set the password while deploying the virtual appliance.

administrator@your_domain_name Use this user name for vCenter Single Sign-On login.

You set the password while creating the vCenter Single Sign-On domain. You create a

vCenter Single Sign-On domain during the deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller or the first Platform Services Controller instance in a

new vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

After you create a vCenter Single Sign-On domain, only the

administrator@your_domain_name user has the privileges required to log in to vCenter Single

Sign-On and vCenter Server.

The administrator@your_domain_name user can proceed as follows:

nAdd an identity source in which additional users and groups are defined to vCenter Single

Sign-On.

nGive permissions to the users and groups.

For information about adding identity sources and giving permissions to the users and groups,

see Platform Services Controller Administration.

For information about upgrading and patching the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller appliance, see vSphere Upgrade.

For information about configuring the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller

appliance, see vCenter Server Appliance Configuration.

Starting with vSphere 6.5, vCenter Server supports mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environment. If you want to set

up the vCenter Server Appliance to use an IPv6 address version, use the fully qualified domain name

(FQDN) or host name of the appliance. To set up an IPv4 address, the best practice is to use the FQDN

or host name of the appliance, because the IP address can change if assigned by DHCP.

This chapter includes the following topics:

nSystem Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance

nPreparing for Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller

Appliance

nPrerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller Appliance

nGUI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance

nCLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance

System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance

and Platform Services Controller Appliance

You can deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance on an ESXi host

5.5 or later, or on a vCenter Server instance 5.5 or later. Your system must also meet specific software

and hardware requirements.

When you use Fully Qualified Domain Names, verify that the client machine from which you are deploying

the appliance and the network on which you are deploying the appliance use the same DNS server.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 23

Before you deploy the appliance, synchronize the clocks of the target server and all vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller instances on the vSphere network. Unsynchronized clocks might result in

authentication problems and can cause the installation to fail or prevent the appliance services from

starting. See Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network.

Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance, you can select to deploy an appliance that is suitable for

the size of your vSphere environment. The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the

amount of memory for the appliance. The size of the Platform Services Controller appliance is the same

for all environment sizes.

Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance

The hardware requirements for a vCenter Server Appliance depend on the size of your vSphere

inventory.

Table 2‑1. Hardware Requirements for a vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded or

External Platform Services Controller

Number of vCPUs Memory

Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100

virtual machines)

2 10 GB

Small environment (up to 100 hosts or

1,000 virtual machines)

4 16 GB

Medium environment (up to 400 hosts or

4,000 virtual machine)

8 24 GB

Large environment (up to 1,000 hosts or

10,000 virtual machines)

16 32 GB

X-Large environment (up to 2,000 hosts or

35,000 virtual machines)

24 48 GB

Note If you want to add an ESXi host with more than 512 LUNs and 2,048 paths to the

vCenter Server Appliance inventory, you must deploy a vCenter Server Appliance for a large or x-large

environment.

Hardware Requirements for the Platform Services Controller Appliance

The hardware requirements for a Platform Services Controller appliance are 2 vCPUs and 4 GB memory.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 24

Storage Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance, the ESXi host

or DRS cluster on which you deploy the appliance must meet minimum storage requirements. The

required storage depends not only on the size of the vSphere environment and the storage size, but also

on the disk provisioning mode.

Storage Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance

The storage requirements are different for each vSphere environment size and depend on your database

size requirements.

Table 2‑2. Storage Requirements for a vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded or

External Platform Services Controller

Default Storage Size Large Storage Size X-Large Storage Size

Tiny environment (up to 10

hosts or 100 virtual machines)

250 GB 775 GB 1650 GB

Small environment (up to 100

hosts or 1,000 virtual

machines)

290 GB 820 GB 1700 GB

Medium environment (up to

400 hosts or 4,000 virtual

machine)

425 GB 925 GB 1805 GB

Large environment (up to 1,000

hosts or 10,000 virtual

machines)

640 GB 990 GB 1870 GB

X-Large environment (up to

2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual

machines)

980 GB 1030 GB 1910 GB

Note The storage requirements include the requirements for the VMware Update Manager that runs as

a service in the vCenter Server Appliance.

Storage Requirements for the Platform Services Controller Appliance

The storage requirement for a Platform Services Controller appliance is 60 GB.

Software Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

The VMware vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance can be deployed on

ESXi hosts 5.5 or later, or on vCenter Server instances 6.0 or later.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 25

You can deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance by using the GUI

or CLI installer. You run the installer from a network client machine that you use to connect to the target

server and deploy the appliance on the server. You can connect directly to an ESXi 6.x host on which to

deploy the appliance. You can also connect to a vCenter Server 6.x instance to deploy the appliance on

an ESXi host or DRS cluster that resides in the vCenter Server inventory.

For information about the requirements for network client machine, see System Requirements for the

vCenter Server Appliance Installer.

Required Ports for vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller

The vCenter Server system, both on Windows and in the appliance, must be able to send data to every

managed host and receive data from the vSphere Web Client and the Platform Services Controller

services. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and

destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.

If a port is in use or is blacklisted, the vCenter Server installer displays an error message. You must use

another port number to proceed with the installation. There are internal ports that are used only for inter-

process communication.

VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated

ports for data from vCenter Server. If a built-in firewall exists between any of these elements, the installer

opens the ports during the installation or upgrade process. For custom firewalls, you must manually open

the required ports. If you have a firewall between two managed hosts and you want to perform source or

target activities, such as migration or cloning, you must configure a means for the managed hosts to

receive data.

Note In Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and later, firewall is enabled by default.

Table 2‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

22 TCP System port for SSHD. Appliance deployments

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

53 DNS service Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 26

Table 2‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

80 TCP vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct

HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects

requests to HTTPS port 443. This

redirection is useful if you accidentally

use http://server instead of https://server.

WS-Management (also requires port 443

to be open).

If you use a Microsoft SQL database that

is stored on the same virtual machine or

physical server as the vCenter Server,

port 80 is used by the SQL Reporting

Service. When you install or upgrade

vCenter Server, the installer prompts you

to change the HTTP port for

vCenter Server. Change the

vCenter Server HTTP port to a custom

value to ensure a successful installation

or upgrade.

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

88 TCP Active Directory server. This port must be

open for host to join Active Directory. If

you use native Active Directory, the port

must be open on both vCenter Server

and Platform Services Controller.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

389 TCP/UDP This port must be open on the local and

all remote instances of vCenter Server.

This is the LDAP port number for the

Directory Services for the vCenter Server

group. If another service is running on

this port, it might be preferable to remove

it or change its port to a different port.

You can run the LDAP service on any

port from 1025 through 65535.

If this instance is serving as the Microsoft

Windows Active Directory, change the

port number from 389 to an available port

from 1025 through 65535.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

Platform Services

Controller

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 27

Table 2‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

443 TCP The default port that the vCenter Server

system uses to listen for connections

from the vSphere Web Client. To enable

the vCenter Server system to receive

data from the vSphere Web Client, open

port 443 in the firewall.

The vCenter Server system also uses

port 443 to monitor data transfer from

SDK clients.

This port is also used for the following

services:

nWS-Management (also requires port

80 to be open)

nThird-party network management

client connections to vCenter Server

nThird-party network management

clients access to hosts

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

vCenter Server

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

514 TCP/UDP vSphere Syslog Collector port for

vCenter Server on Windows and vSphere

Syslog Service port for

vCenter Server Appliance

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

636 TCP vCenter Single Sign-On LDAPS

For backward compatibility with vSphere

6.0 only.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

During upgrade from

vSphere 6.0 only.

vCenter Server 6.0 to

Platform Services

Controller 6.5

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 28

Table 2‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

902 TCP/UDP The default port that the vCenter Server

system uses to send data to managed

hosts. Managed hosts also send a

regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to

the vCenter Server system. This port

must not be blocked by firewalls between

the server and the hosts or between

hosts.

Port 902 must not be blocked between

the VMware Host Client and the hosts.

The VMware Host Client uses this port to

display virtual machine consoles

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

1514 TCP vSphere Syslog Collector TLS port for

vCenter Server on Windows and vSphere

Syslog Service TLS port for

vCenter Server Appliance

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

2012 TCP Control interface RPC for vCenter Single

Sign-On

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller to

Platform Services

Controller

2014 TCP RPC port for all VMCA (VMware

Certificate Authority) APIs

Important You can change this port

number during the

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

2015 TCP DNS management Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

Platform Services

Controller to

Platform Services

Controller

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 29

Table 2‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

2020 TCP/UDP Authentication framework management

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

5480 TCP Appliance Management Interface

Open endpoint serving all HTTPS,

XMLRPS and JSON-RPC requests over

HTTPS.

Appliance deployments

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

6500 TCP/UDP ESXi Dump Collector port

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

6501 TCP Auto Deploy service

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

6502 TCP Auto Deploy management

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

7080,

12721

TCP Secure Token Service

Note Internal ports

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

7081 TCP VMware Platform Services Controller

Web Client

Note Internal port

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

8200,

8201,

8300,

8301

TCP Appliance management

Note Internal ports

Appliance deployments

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

8084 TCP vSphere Update Manager SOAP port

The port used by vSphere Update

Manager client plug-in to connect to the

vSphere Update Manager SOAP server.

Appliance deployments

of vCenter Server

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 30

Table 2‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

9084 TCP vSphere Update Manager Web Server

Port

The HTTP port used by ESXi hosts to

access host patch files from vSphere

Update Manager server.

Appliance deployments

of vCenter Server

9087 TCP vSphere Update Manager Web SSL Port

The HTTPS port used by vSphere

Update Manager client plug-in to upload

host upgrade files to vSphere Update

Manager server.

Appliance deployments

of vCenter Server

9443 TCP vSphere Web Client HTTPS Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

To configure the vCenter Server system to use a different port to receive vSphere Web Client data, see

the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.

For more information about firewall configuration, see the vSphere Security documentation.

DNS Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance, similar to any

network server, you can assign a fixed IP address and an FQDN that is resolvable by a DNS server so

that clients can reliably access the service.

When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance with a static IP

address, you ensure that in case of system restart, the IP address of the appliance remains the same.

Before you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance with a static IP

address, you must verify that this IP address has a valid internal domain name system (DNS) registration.

When you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance, the installation of the Web server component that

supports the vSphere Web Client fails if the installer cannot look up the fully qualified domain name

(FQDN) for the appliance from its IP address. Reverse lookup is implemented using PTR records.

If you plan to use an FQDN for the appliance system name, you must verify that the FQDN is resolvable

by a DNS server.

You can use the nslookup command to verify that the DNS reverse lookup service returns an FQDN

when queried with the IP address and to verify that the FQDN is resolvable.

nslookup -nosearch -nodefname FQDN_or_IP_address

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 31

If you use DHCP instead of a static IP address for the vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller appliance, verify that the appliance name is updated in the domain name

service (DNS). If you can ping the appliance name, the name is updated in DNS.

Ensure that the ESXi host management interface has a valid DNS resolution from the vCenter Server and

all vSphere Web Client instances. Ensure that the vCenter Server has a valid DNS resolution from all

ESXi hosts and all vSphere Web Clients.

vSphere Web Client Software Requirements

Make sure that your browser supports the vSphere Web Client.

The vSphere Web Client 6.7 requires Adobe Flash Player v. 16 to 23. For best performance and the most

recent security updates, use Adobe Flash Player 23.

VMware has tested and supports the following guest operating systems and browser versions for the

vSphere Web Client. For best performance, use Google Chrome.

Table 2‑4. Supported Guest Operating Systems and Minimum Browser Versions for the

vSphere Web Client

Operating system Browser

Windows Microsoft Internet Explorer v. 10.0.19 and later.

Mozilla Firefox v. 39 and later.

Google Chrome v. 34 and later.

Mac OS Mozilla Firefox v. 39 and later.

Google Chrome v. 34 and later.

Preparing for Deployment of the

vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

Before you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance, you must

download the vCenter Server Appliance installer ISO file and mount it to a network virtual machine or

physical server from which you want to perform the deployment.

The machine from which you deploy the appliance must run on a Windows, Linux, or Mac operating

system that meets the operating system requirements. See System Requirements for the vCenter Server

Appliance Installer.

System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance Installer

You can run the vCenter Server Appliance GUI or CLI installer from a network client machine that is

running on a Windows, Linux, or Mac operating system of a supported version.

To ensure optimal performance of the GUI and CLI installers, use a client machine that meets the

minimum hardware requirements.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 32

Table 2‑5. System Requirements for the GUI and CLI Installers

Operating System Supported Versions Minimum Hardware Configuration for Optimal Performance

Windows nWindows 7, 8, 8.1, 10

nWindows 2012 x64 bit

nWindows 2012 R2

x64 bit

nWindows 2016 x64 bit

4 GB RAM, 2 CPU having 4 cores with 2.3 GHz, 32 GB hard disk, 1 NIC

Linux nSUSE 12

nUbuntu 14.04

4 GB RAM, 1 CPU having 2 cores with 2.3 GHz, 16 GB hard disk, 1 NIC

Note The CLI installer requires 64-bit OS.

Mac nmacOS v10.9, 10,10,

10.11

nmacOS Sierra

8 GB RAM, 1 CPU having 4 cores with 2.4 GHz, 150 GB hard disk, 1 NIC

Note For client machines that run on Mac 10.11, concurrent GUI deployments of multiple appliances are

unsupported. You must deploy the appliances in a sequence.

Note Visual C++ redistributable libraries need to be installed to run the CLI installer on versions of

Windows older than Windows 10. The Microsoft installers for these libraries are located in the vcsa-cli-

installer/win32/vcredist directory.

Note Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance with the GUI requires a minimum resolution of 1024x768

to properly display. Lower resolutions can truncate the UI elements.

Download and Mount the vCenter Server Appliance Installer

VMware releases the vCenter Server Appliance ISO image, which contains GUI and CLI installers for the

vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance.

With the GUI and CLI executable files that are included in the vCenter Server Appliance installer, you can:

nDeploy the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance.

nUpgrade the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance.

nMigrate Windows installations of vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On, and

Platform Services Controller to the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller

appliance.

nRestore a vCenter Server Appliance from a file-based backup.

Prerequisites

nCreate a My VMware account at https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/.

nVerify that your client machine meets the system requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance

installer. See System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance Installer.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 33

Procedure

1From the VMware Web site at https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads, download the

vCenter Server Appliance ISO image.

VMware-VCSA-all-version_number-build_number.iso

2Confirm that the md5sum is correct.

See the VMware Web site topic Using MD5 Checksums at

http://www.vmware.com/download/md5.html.

3Mount or extract the ISO image to the client machine from which you want to deploy, upgrade,

migrate, or restore the appliance.

Note ISO mounting or extracting software that does not allow more than eight directory levels, for

example, MagicISO Maker on Windows, is unsupported.

For Linux OS and Mac OS, Archive Manager is unsupported.

For Mac OS, you can use DiskImageMounter.

For Ubuntu 14.04, you can use Disk Image Mounter.

For SUSE 12 OS, you can use the terminal.

$ sudo mkdir mount_dir

$ sudo mount -o loop VMware-vCSA-all-version_number-build_number.iso mount_dir

What to do next

Open the readme.txt file and review the information about the other files and directories in the

vCenter Server Appliance ISO image.

Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network

Verify that all components on the vSphere network have their clocks synchronized. If the clocks on the

machines in your vSphere network are not synchronized, SSL certificates, which are time-sensitive, might

not be recognized as valid in communications between network machines.

Unsynchronized clocks can result in authentication problems, which can cause the installation to fail or

prevent the vCenter Server Appliance vpxd service from starting.

Verify that any Windows host machine on which vCenter Server runs is synchronized with the Network

Time Server (NTP) server. See the Knowledge Base article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1318.

To synchronize ESXi clocks with an NTP server, you can use the VMware Host Client. For information

about editing the time configuration of an ESXi host, see vSphere Single Host Management.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 34

System Clock Synchronization Between the Client and Server

To establish a secure TLS connection to a Platform Services Controller or vCenter Server (the server), the

system where you are running the CLI installer (the client) must not have its system clock slower or faster

than the server's system clock by an acceptable limit (tolerance).

See Table 2‑6 for specific values for each deployment scenario.

Note The client clock values are applicable only for vCenter Server 6.7.

Table 2‑6. Client Clock Tolerance

Deployment Scenario Clock Tolerance Connection Notes

Linking one Platform Services Controller

with another Platform Services Controller

Clock tolerance for the client and the

external Platform Services Controller

must not exceed 10 minutes

The CLI installer must make a secure

connection to a

Platform Services Controller.

Linking a vCenter Server with an external

Platform Services Controller

Clock tolerance for the client and

external Platform Services Controller

must not exceed 10 minutes.

The CLI installer must make a secure

connection to a

Platform Services Controller.

Linking one vCenter Server with an

embedded Platform Services Controller

with another vCenter Server with an

embedded Platform Services Controller

When deploying the second

vCenter Server with embedded

Platform Services Controller, the clock

tolerance for the client and the first

vCenter Server with embedded

Platform Services Controller must not

exceed 10 minutes.

Installing a vCenter Server Appliance

using a container vCenter Server

vCenter Server with a *._on_vc.json

template.

The maximum clock tolerance between

the client and the container

vCenter Server is 8 hours 20 minutes.

Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance

or Platform Services Controller Appliance

To ensure successful deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

appliance, you must preform some required tasks and pre-checks before running the installer.

General Prerequisites

nDownload and Mount the vCenter Server Appliance Installer.

nFor topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, verify that you deploy the

different nodes with time synchronization between each other. All vCenter Server instances,

Platform Services Controller instances, and third-party load balancers in the vCenter Single Sign-On

domain must be time synchronized. See Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 35

Target System Prerequisites

nVerify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See System

Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance.

nIf you want to deploy the appliance on an ESXi host, verify that the ESXi host is not in lockdown or

maintenance mode and not part of a fully automated DRS cluster.

nIf you want to deploy the appliance on a DRS cluster of the inventory of a vCenter Server instance,

verify that the cluster contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.

nIf you plan to use NTP servers for time synchronization, verify that the NTP servers are running and

that the time between the NTP servers and the target server on which you want to deploy the

appliance is synchronized.

Network Prerequisites

If you plan to assign a static IP address and an FQDN as a system name in the network settings of the

appliance, verify that you have configured the forward and reverse DNS records for the IP address.

GUI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller, a Platform Services Controller appliance, or a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller.

When you perform the GUI deployment, you download the vCenter Server Appliance installer on a

network client machine, run the deployment wizard from the client machine, and provide the inputs that

are required for the appliance deployment and setup.

Important For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must deploy the

replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful deployment of all

Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent deployments of multiple

vCenter Server appliances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

The GUI deployment process includes a series of two stages.

Figure 2‑1. Stage 1 - OVA Deployment

The first stage walks you through the deployment wizard to choose the deployment type and appliance

settings. This stage completes the deployment of the OVA file on the target server with the deployment

type and appliance settings that you provide.

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VMware, Inc. 36

As an alternative to performing the first stage of the deployment with the GUI installer, you can deploy the

OVA file of the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance by using the

vSphere Web Client or VMware Host Client. To deploy the OVA file on an ESXi host or vCenter Server

instance of 6.0, you can also use the vSphere Client. After the OVA deployment, you must log in to the

appliance management interface of the newly deployed appliance to proceed with the second stage of the

deployment process.

Figure 2‑2. Stage 2 - Appliance Setup

The second stage walks you through the setup wizard to configure the appliance time synchronization

and vCenter Single Sign-On. This stage completes the initial setup and starts the services of the newly

deployed appliance.

As an alternative to performing the second stage of the deployment with the GUI installer, you can log in

to the Appliance Management Interface of the newly deployed appliance, https://FQDN_or_IP_address:

5480.

Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller Appliance

When you use the GUI method to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller, a Platform Services Controller appliance, or a vCenter Server Appliance

with an external Platform Services Controller, the wizard prompts you for deployment and setup

information. It is a best practice to keep a record of the values that you enter in case you must reinstall

the product.

You can use this worksheet to record the information that you need for deploying a

vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller, a Platform Services Controller

appliance, or a vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller.

Table 2‑7. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process

Required for Deployment of Required Information Default Your Entry

All deployment types FQDN or IP address of the target

server on which you want to deploy the

appliance.

The target server can be either an

ESXi host or a vCenter Server

instance.

HTTPS port of the target server 443

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Table 2‑7. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process (Continued)

Required for Deployment of Required Information Default Your Entry

User name with administrative

privileges on the target server

nIf your target server is an ESXi

host, use root.

nIf your target server is a

vCenter Server instance, use

user_name@your_domain_name,

for example,

administrator@vsphere.local.

Password of the user with

administrative privileges on the target

server

All deployment types

Only if your target server is a

vCenter Server instance

Data center from the vCenter Server

inventory on which you want to deploy

the appliance

Optionally you can provide a data

center folder.

ESXi host or DRS cluster from the

data center inventory on which you

want to deploy the appliance

All deployment types VM name for the appliance

nMust not contain a percent sign

(%), backslash (\), or forward slash

(/)

nMust be no more than 80

characters in length

VMware vCenter

Server Appliance

All deployment types Password for the root user of the

appliance operating system

nMust contain only lower ASCII

characters without spaces.

nMust be at least 8 characters, but

no more than 20 characters in

length

nMust contain at least one

uppercase letter

nMust contain at least one

lowercase letter

nMust contain at least one number

nMust contain at least one special

character, for example, a dollar

sign ($), hash key (#), at sign (@),

period (.), or exclamation mark (!)

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Table 2‑7. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process (Continued)

Required for Deployment of Required Information Default Your Entry

nvCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller

nvCenter Server Appliance

with an external

Platform Services Controller

Deployment size of the

vCenter Server Appliance for your

vSphere environment

nTiny

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs

and 10 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up

to 10 hosts or 100 virtual

machines.

nSmall

Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs

and 16 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up

to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual

machines.

nMedium

Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs

and 24 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up

to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual

machines.

nLarge

Deploys an appliance with 16

CPUs and 32 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up

to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual

machines.

nX-Large

Deploys an appliance with 24

CPUs and 48 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up

to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual

machines.

Tiny

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

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Table 2‑7. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process (Continued)

Required for Deployment of Required Information Default Your Entry

nvCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller

nvCenter Server Appliance

with an external

Platform Services Controller

Storage size of the

vCenter Server Appliance for your

vSphere environment

Increase the default storage size if you

want larger volume for SEAT data

(stats, events, alarms, and tasks).

nDefault

For tiny deployment size, deploys

the appliance with 300 GB of

storage.

For small deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 340 GB

of storage.

For medium deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 525 GB

of storage.

For large deployment size, deploys

the appliance with 740 GB of

storage.

For x-large deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 1180

GB of storage.

nLarge

For tiny deployment size, deploys

the appliance with 825 GB of

storage.

For small deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 870 GB

of storage.

For medium deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 1025

GB of storage.

For large deployment size, deploys

the appliance with 1090 GB of

storage.

For x-large deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 1230

GB of storage.

nX-Large

For tiny deployment size, deploys

the appliance with 1700 GB of

storage.

For small deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 1750

GB of storage.

Default

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

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Table 2‑7. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process (Continued)

Required for Deployment of Required Information Default Your Entry

For medium deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 1905

GB of storage.

For large deployment size, deploys

the appliance with 1970 GB of

storage.

For x-large deployment size,

deploys the appliance with 2110

GB of storage.

All deployment types Name of the datastore on which you

want to store the configuration files

and virtual disks of the appliance

Note The installer displays a list of

datastores that are accessible from

your target server.

Enable or disable Thin Disk Mode Disabled

All deployment types Name of the network to which to

connect the appliance

Note The installer displays a drop-

down menu with networks that depend

on the network settings of your target

server. If you are deploying the

appliance directly on an ESXi host,

non-ephemeral distributed virtual port

groups are not supported and are not

displayed in the drop-down menu.

The network must be accessible from

the client machine from which you

perform the deployment.

IP version for the appliance address

Can be either IPv4 or IPv6.

IPv4

IP assignment for the appliance

address

Can be either static or DHCP.

static

All deployment types

Only if you use a static

assignment

FQDN

vCenter Server uses FQDN or IP

address as the system name.

IP address -

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Table 2‑7. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process (Continued)

Required for Deployment of Required Information Default Your Entry

For IPv4 networks, you can use either

a subnet mask or a network prefix.

Subnet mask uses a dot decimal

notation (for example, 255.255.255.0).

An IPv4 network prefix is an integer

between 0 and 32.

For IPv6 networks, you must use a

network prefix. An IPv6 network prefix

is an integer between 0 and 128 .

Default gateway -

DNS servers separated by commas -

All deployment types

Only if you use a DHCP

assignment with IPv4 version and

a DDNS server is available in

your environment.

System name (FQDN) -

Table 2‑8. Required Information During Stage 2 of the GUI Deployment Process

Required for Required Information Default Your Entry

All deployment types Time synchronization settings

You can synchronize the time of the

appliance either with the time of the

ESXi host or with one or more NTP

servers.

If you want to use more than one NTP

servers, you must provide the IP

addresses or FQDNs of the NTP

servers as a comma-separated list.

Synchronize time with

NTP servers

Enable or disable SSH access

Note vCenter Server Appliance high

availability requires remote SSH

access to the appliance.

Disabled

nvCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller

nPlatform Services Controller

appliance as the first

instance in a new domain

Name for the new vCenter Single

Sign-On domain

For example, vsphere.local.

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Table 2‑8. Required Information During Stage 2 of the GUI Deployment Process (Continued)

Required for Required Information Default Your Entry

Password for the administrator

account,

administrator@your_domain_name

nMust be at least 8 characters, but

no more than 20 characters in

length

nMust contain at least one

uppercase letter

nMust contain at least one

lowercase letter

nMust contain at least one number

nMust contain at least one special

character, such as ampersand (&),

hash key (#), and percent sign (%)

nvCenter Server Appliance

with an external

Platform Services Controller

nPlatform Services Controller

appliance as a subsequent

instance in an existing

domain

FQDN or IP address of the

Platform Services Controller instance

that you want to join

You must join a

Platform Services Controller instance

of the same version.

HTTPS port of the

Platform Services Controller instance

443

vCenter Single Sign On domain name

of the Platform Services Controller

instance

For example, vsphere.local.

Password of the vCenter Single Sign

On administrator user for the domain

vCenter Single Sign-On site name

You can join an existing site or create

a new site.

nvCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller

nPlatform Services Controller

appliance

Join or do not participate in the

VMware Customer Experience

Improvement Program (CEIP)

For information about the CEIP, see

the Configuring Customer Experience

Improvement Program section in

vCenter Server and Host

Management.

Join the CEIP

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Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded

Platform Services Controller by Using the GUI

You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller. You must run the GUI deployment from a Windows, Linux, or

Mac machine that is in the network on which you want to deploy the appliance.

Figure 2‑3. Deployment Workﬂow of a vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded

Platform Services Controller

Start the deployment

End of the deployment

Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA file as

a vCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded Platform

Services Controller

Stage 2 - Set up the newly deployed

vCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller

Prerequisites

nSee Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance.

nSee Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance.

Procedure

1Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded Platform Services

Controller

With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance installer, as a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller.

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2Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded Platform

Services Controller

When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set

up and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller.

Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a vCenter Server Appliance with an

Embedded Platform Services Controller

With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance installer, as a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller.

Procedure

1In the vCenter Server Appliance installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the

subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.

nFor Windows OS, go to the win32 subdirectory, and run the installer.exe file.

nFor Linux OS, go to the lin64 subdirectory, and run the installer file.

nFor Mac OS, go to the mac subdirectory, and run the Installer.app file.

2On the Home page, click Install to start the deployment wizard.

3Review the Introduction page to understand the deployment process and click Next.

4Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next.

5On the Select deployment type page, select vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services

Controller and click Next.

This option deploys an appliance in which both the Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server

are installed.

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6Connect to the target server on which you want to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance.

Option Steps

You can connect to an

ESXi host on which to

deploy the appliance.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the ESXi host.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the ESXi host.

3 Enter the user name and password of a user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host, for

example, the root user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target ESXi host, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.

You can connect to a

vCenter Server instance

and browse the

inventory to select an

ESXi host or DRS

cluster on which to

deploy the appliance.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the vCenter Server instance.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the vCenter Server instance.

3 Enter the user name and password of user with vCenter Single Sign-On administrative

privileges on the vCenter Server instance, for example, the administrator@your_domain_name

user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target vCenter Server instance, and click Yes to accept the certificate

thumbprint.

6 Select the data center or data center folder that contains the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which

you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next

Note You must select a data center or data center folder that contains at least one ESXi host

that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.

7 Select the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next.

7On the Set up appliance VM page, enter a name for the vCenter Server Appliance, set the password

for the root user, and click Next.

The appliance name must not contain a percent sign (%), backslash (\), or forward slash (/) and must

be no more than 80 characters in length.

The password must contain only lower ASCII characters without spaces, at least eight characters, a

number, uppercase and lowercase letters, and a special character, for example, an exclamation mark

(!), hash key (#), at sign (@), or brackets (()).

8Select the deployment size for the vCenter Server Appliance for your vSphere inventory.

Deployment Size Option Description

Tiny Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs and 10 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines

Small Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs and 16 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines

Medium Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs and 24 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines

Large Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs and 32 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines

X-Large Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs and 48 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines

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9Select the storage size for the vCenter Server Appliance, and click Next.

Storage

Size

Option

Description for

Tiny Deployment

Size

Description for

Small Deployment

Size

Description for

Medium

Deployment Size

Description for

Large Deployment

Size

Description for X-

Large Deployment

Size

Default Deploys an

appliance with 300

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 340

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 525

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 740

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1180

GB of storage.

Large Deploys an

appliance with 825

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 870

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1025

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1090

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1230

GB of storage.

X-Large Deploys an

appliance with 1700

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1750

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1905

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1970

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 2110

GB of storage.

10 From the list of available datastores, select the location where all the virtual machine configuration

files and virtual disks will be stored and, optionally, enable thin provisioning by selecting Enable Thin

Disk Mode. NFS datastores are thin provisioned by default.

11 On the Configure network settings page, set up the network settings.

The IP address or the FQDN of the appliance is used as a system name. It is recommended to use

an FQDN. However, if you want to use an IP address, use static IP address allocation for the

appliance, because IP addresses allocated by DHCP might change.

Option Action

Network Select the network to which to connect the appliance.

The networks displayed in the drop-down menu depend on the network settings

of the target server. If you are deploying the appliance directly on an ESXi host,

non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are not supported and are not

displayed in the drop-down menu.

IP version Select the version for the appliance IP address.

You can select either IPv4 or IPv6.

IP assignment Select how to allocate the IP address of the appliance.

nstatic

The wizard prompts you to enter the IP address and network settings.

Note Avoid using an IP address as a system name. If you use an IP address

as a system name, you cannot change the IP address and update the DNS

settings after deployment.

nDHCP

A DHCP server is used to allocate the IP address. Select this option only if a

DHCP server is available in your environment.

If there is an enabled DDNS in your environment, you can enter a preferred

fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the appliance.

Common Ports You can customize the HTTP and HTTPS ports (optional).

If specifying a custom HTTP and HTTPS port number, ensure that you do not use

a port number already in use by vCenter Server, or the default HTTP and HTTPS

ports of 80 and 443.

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12 On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the

vCenter Server Appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.

13 Wait for the OVA deployment to finish, and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the deployment

process to set up and start the services of the newly deployed appliance.

Note If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the vCenter Server Appliance

Management Interface to set up and start the services.

The newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller is running

on the target server but the services are not started.

Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an

Embedded Platform Services Controller

When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set up

and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller.

Procedure

1Review the introduction to stage 2 of the deployment process and click Next.

2Configure the time settings in the appliance, optionally enable remote SSH access to the appliance,

and click Next.

Option Description

Synchronize time with the ESXi host Enables periodic time synchronization, and VMware Tools sets the time of the

guest operating system to be the same as the time of the ESXi host.

Synchronize time with NTP servers Uses a Network Time Protocol server for synchronizing the time. If you select this

option, you must enter the names or IP addresses of the NTP servers separated

by commas.

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3Create a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain or join an existing domain.

Option Description

Create a new Single Sign-On domain Creates a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

a Enter the domain name, for example vsphere.local.

b Set the password for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.

This is the password for the user administrator@your_domain_name.

c Confirm the administrator password, and click Next.

Join an existing vCenter Single Sign-

On domain

Joins a new vCenter Single Sign-On server to a vCenter Single Sign-On domain

in an existing Platform Services Controller. You must provide the information

about the vCenter Single Sign-On server to which you join the new vCenter

Single Sign-On server.

a Enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the

Platform Services Controller that contains the vCenter Single Sign-On server

to join.

b Enter the HTTPS port to use for communication with the

Platform Services Controller.

c Enter the domain name for the vCenter Single Sign-On you are joining, for

example vsphere.local.

d Enter the password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.

e Click Next.

4Review the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) page and choose if you

want to join the program.

For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program

section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

5On the Ready to complete page, review the configuration settings for the vCenter Server Appliance,

click Finish, and click OK to complete stage 2 of the deployment process and set up the appliance.

6(Optional) After the initial setup finishes, enter the URL from the browser with

https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn/ui or https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn/vsphere-

client to go to the vSphere Web Client and log in to the vCenter Server instance in the

vCenter Server Appliance, or click the https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn:443 to go the

vCenter Server Appliance Getting Started page.

7Click Close to exit the wizard.

You are redirected to the vCenter Server Appliance Getting Started page.

What to do next

You can configure high availability for the vCenter Server Appliance. For information about providing

vCenter Server Appliance high availability, see vSphere Availability.

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Deploy a Platform Services Controller Appliance by Using the GUI

You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive deployment of a Platform Services Controller

appliance as the first instance in a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain or as a replication partner in an

existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain. You must run the GUI deployment from a Windows, Linux, or

Mac machine that is in the network on which you want to deploy the appliance.

Important You must deploy the replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence.

Figure 2‑4. Deployment Workﬂow of a Platform Services Controller Appliance

Start the deployment

End of the deployment

Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA file

as a Platform Services

Controller appliance

Stage 2 - Set up the

newly deployed Platform

Services Controller appliance

Prerequisites

nSee Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance.

nSee Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance.

Procedure

1Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a Platform Services Controller Appliance

With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance installer, as a Platform Services Controller appliance.

2Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed Platform Services Controller Appliance

When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set

up and start the services of the newly deployed Platform Services Controller appliance.

vCenter Server Installation and Setup

VMware, Inc. 50

Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a Platform Services Controller Appliance

With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance installer, as a Platform Services Controller appliance.

Procedure

1In the vCenter Server Appliance installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the

subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.

nFor Windows OS, go to the win32 subdirectory, and run the installer.exe file.

nFor Linux OS, go to the lin64 subdirectory, and run the installer file.

nFor Mac OS, go to the mac subdirectory, and run the Installer.app file.

2On the Home page, click Install to start the deployment wizard.

3Review the Introduction page to understand the deployment process and click Next.

4Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next.

5On the Select a deployment type page, select Platform Services Controller and click Next.

6Connect to the target server on which you want to deploy the Platform Services Controller appliance

and click Next.

Option Steps

You can connect to an

ESXi host on which to

deploy the appliance.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the ESXi host.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the ESXi host.

3 Enter the user name and password of a user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host, for

example, the root user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target ESXi host, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.

You can connect to a

vCenter Server instance

and browse the

inventory to select an

ESXi host or DRS

cluster on which to

deploy the appliance.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the vCenter Server instance.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the vCenter Server instance.

3 Enter the user name and password of user with vCenter Single Sign-On administrative

privileges on the vCenter Server instance, for example, the administrator@your_domain_name

user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target vCenter Server instance, and click Yes to accept the certificate

thumbprint.

6 Select the data center or data center folder that contains the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which

you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next

Note You must select a data center or data center folder that contains at least one ESXi host

that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.

7 Select the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next.

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7On the Set up appliance VM page, enter a name for the Platform Services Controller appliance, set

the password for the root user, and click Next.

The appliance name must not contain a percent sign (%), backslash (\), or forward slash (/) and must

be no more than 80 characters in length.

The password must contain only lower ASCII characters without spaces, at least eight characters, a

number, uppercase and lowercase letters, and a special character, for example, an exclamation mark

(!), hash key (#), at sign (@), or brackets (()).

8From the list of available datastores, select the location where all the virtual machine configuration

files and virtual disks will be stored and, optionally, enable thin provisioning by selecting Enable Thin

Disk Mode. NFS datastores are thin provisioned by default.

9On the Configure network settings page, set up the network settings.

The IP address or the FQDN of the appliance is used as a system name. It is recommended to use

an FQDN. However, if you want to use an IP address, use static IP address allocation for the

appliance, because IP addresses allocated by DHCP might change.

Option Action

Network Select the network to which to connect the appliance.

The networks displayed in the drop-down menu depend on the network settings

of the target server. If you are deploying the appliance directly on an ESXi host,

non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are not supported and are not

displayed in the drop-down menu.

IP version Select the version for the appliance IP address.

You can select either IPv4 or IPv6.

IP assignment Select how to allocate the IP address of the appliance.

nstatic

The wizard prompts you to enter the IP address and network settings.

Note Avoid using an IP address as a system name. If you use an IP address

as a system name, you cannot change the IP address and update the DNS

settings after deployment.

nDHCP

A DHCP server is used to allocate the IP address. Select this option only if a

DHCP server is available in your environment.

If there is an enabled DDNS in your environment, you can enter a preferred

fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the appliance.

Common Ports You can customize the HTTP and HTTPS ports (optional).

If specifying a custom HTTP and HTTPS port number, ensure that you do not use

a port number already in use by vCenter Server, or the default HTTP and HTTPS

ports of 80 and 443.

10 On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the

Platform Services Controller appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.

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11 Wait for the OVA deployment to finish, and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the deployment

process to set up and start the services of the newly deployed appliance.

Note If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the Platform Services Controller

Appliance Management Interface to set up and start the services.

The newly deployed Platform Services Controller appliance is running on the target server but the

services are not started.

Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed Platform Services Controller Appliance

When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set up

and start the services of the newly deployed Platform Services Controller appliance.

Procedure

1Review the introduction to stage 2 of the deployment process and click Next.

2Configure the time settings in the appliance, optionally enable remote SSH access to the appliance,

and click Next.

Option Description

Synchronize time with the ESXi host Enables periodic time synchronization, and VMware Tools sets the time of the

guest operating system to be the same as the time of the ESXi host.

Synchronize time with NTP servers Uses a Network Time Protocol server for synchronizing the time. If you select this

option, you must enter the names or IP addresses of the NTP servers separated

by commas.

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3Create a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain or join an existing domain.

Option Description

Create a new Single Sign-On domain Creates a vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

a Enter the domain name, for example vsphere.local.

b Set the password for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.

This is the password for the user administrator@your_domain_name.

c Enter the site name for vCenter Single Sign-On.

The site name is important if you are using vCenter Single Sign-On in multiple

locations. The site name must contain alphanumeric characters. Choose your

own name for the vCenter Single Sign-On site. You cannot change the name

after installation.

Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported in site names.

Your site name must include alphanumeric characters and a comma (,),

period (.), question mark (?), dash (-), underscore (_), plus sign (+) or equals

sign (=).

d Click Next.

Join an existing vCenter Single Sign-

On domain

Joins the Platform Services Controller appliance to an existing vCenter Single

Sign-On domain as a replication partner of an existing

Platform Services Controller instance. You must provide the information about the

partner Platform Services Controller instance that you want to join.

a Enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the partner

Platform Services Controller instance.

b Enter the HTTPS port of the partner Platform Services Controller instance.

c Enter the vCenter Single Sign-On domain name of the partner

Platform Services Controller instance.

d Enter the password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user.

e Click Next.

f Select whether to create or join an existing vCenter Single Sign-On site.

4Review the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) page and choose if you

want to join the program.

For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program

section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

5On the Ready to complete page, review the configuration settings for the Platform Services Controller

appliance, click Finish, and click OK to complete stage 2 of the deployment process and set up the

appliance.

6(Optional) After the initial setup finishes, click the https://platform_services_controller_fqdn/psc to

go to the Platform Services Controller Web interface, or click the

https://platform_services_controller_fqdn:443 to go the Platform Services Controller Getting

Started page.

7Click Close to exit the wizard.

You are redirected to the Platform Services Controller Getting Started page.

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If you joined the new Platform Services Controller appliance to an existing vCenter Single Sign-On

domain, the appliance replicates infrastructure data with the other Platform Services Controller instances

within the domain.

What to do next

nYou can deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller and register

it with the newly deployed Platform Services Controller appliance.

nYou can deploy one or more Platform Services Controller instances joining the same vCenter Single

Sign-On domain to replicate infrastructure data and distribute the load.

Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance with an External

Platform Services Controller by Using the GUI

You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance and

deployment from a Windows, Linux, or Mac machine that is in the network on which you want to deploy

the appliance.

Figure 2‑5. Deployment Workﬂow of a vCenter Server Appliance with an External

Platform Services Controller

Start the deployment

End of the deployment

Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA file

as a vCenter Server Appliance

with an external Platform

Services Controller

Stage 2 - Set up the newly

deployed vCenter Server Appliance

with an external Platform

Services Controller

Prerequisites

nSee Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance.

nSee Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance.

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nVerify that you have installed or deployed the Platform Services Controller instance with which you

plan to register the vCenter Server Appliance.

Procedure

1Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a vCenter Server Appliance With an External Platform Services

Controller

With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance installer, as a vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller.

2Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance With an External Platform Services

Controller

When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set

up and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller.

Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a vCenter Server Appliance With an External

Platform Services Controller

With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance installer, as a vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller.

Procedure

1In the vCenter Server Appliance installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the

subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.

nFor Windows OS, go to the win32 subdirectory, and run the installer.exe file.

nFor Linux OS, go to the lin64 subdirectory, and run the installer file.

nFor Mac OS, go to the mac subdirectory, and run the Installer.app file.

2On the Home page, click Install to start the deployment wizard.

3Review the Introduction page to understand the deployment process and click Next.

4Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next.

5On the Select deployment type page, select vCenter Server (Requires External Platform Services

Controller) and click Next.

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6Connect to the target server on which you want to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance.

Option Steps

You can connect to an

ESXi host on which to

deploy the appliance.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the ESXi host.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the ESXi host.

3 Enter the user name and password of a user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host, for

example, the root user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target ESXi host, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.

You can connect to a

vCenter Server instance

and browse the

inventory to select an

ESXi host or DRS

cluster on which to

deploy the appliance.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the vCenter Server instance.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the vCenter Server instance.

3 Enter the user name and password of user with vCenter Single Sign-On administrative

privileges on the vCenter Server instance, for example, the administrator@your_domain_name

user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target vCenter Server instance, and click Yes to accept the certificate

thumbprint.

6 Select the data center or data center folder that contains the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which

you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next

Note You must select a data center or data center folder that contains at least one ESXi host

that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.

7 Select the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next.

7On the Set up appliance VM page, enter a name for the vCenter Server Appliance, set the password

for the root user, and click Next.

The appliance name must not contain a percent sign (%), backslash (\), or forward slash (/) and must

be no more than 80 characters in length.

The password must contain only lower ASCII characters without spaces, at least eight characters, a

number, uppercase and lowercase letters, and a special character, for example, an exclamation mark

(!), hash key (#), at sign (@), or brackets (()).

8Select the deployment size for the vCenter Server Appliance for your vSphere inventory.

Deployment Size Option Description

Tiny Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs and 10 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines

Small Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs and 16 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines

Medium Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs and 24 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines

Large Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs and 32 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines

X-Large Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs and 48 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines

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9Select the storage size for the vCenter Server Appliance, and click Next.

Storage

Size

Option

Description for

Tiny Deployment

Size

Description for

Small Deployment

Size

Description for

Medium

Deployment Size

Description for

Large Deployment

Size

Description for X-

Large Deployment

Size

Default Deploys an

appliance with 300

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 340

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 525

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 740

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1180

GB of storage.

Large Deploys an

appliance with 825

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 870

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1025

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1090

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1230

GB of storage.

X-Large Deploys an

appliance with 1700

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1750

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1905

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1970

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 2110

GB of storage.

10 From the list of available datastores, select the location where all the virtual machine configuration

files and virtual disks will be stored and, optionally, enable thin provisioning by selecting Enable Thin

Disk Mode. NFS datastores are thin provisioned by default.

11 On the Configure network settings page, set up the network settings.

The IP address or the FQDN of the appliance is used as a system name. It is recommended to use

an FQDN. However, if you want to use an IP address, use static IP address allocation for the

appliance, because IP addresses allocated by DHCP might change.

Option Action

Network Select the network to which to connect the appliance.

The networks displayed in the drop-down menu depend on the network settings

of the target server. If you are deploying the appliance directly on an ESXi host,

non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are not supported and are not

displayed in the drop-down menu.

IP version Select the version for the appliance IP address.

You can select either IPv4 or IPv6.

IP assignment Select how to allocate the IP address of the appliance.

nstatic

The wizard prompts you to enter the IP address and network settings.

Note Avoid using an IP address as a system name. If you use an IP address

as a system name, you cannot change the IP address and update the DNS

settings after deployment.

nDHCP

A DHCP server is used to allocate the IP address. Select this option only if a

DHCP server is available in your environment.

If there is an enabled DDNS in your environment, you can enter a preferred

fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the appliance.

Common Ports You can customize the HTTP and HTTPS ports (optional).

If specifying a custom HTTP and HTTPS port number, ensure that you do not use

a port number already in use by vCenter Server, or the default HTTP and HTTPS

ports of 80 and 443.

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12 On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the

vCenter Server Appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.

13 Wait for the OVA deployment to finish, and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the deployment

process to set up and start the services of the newly deployed appliance.

Note If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the vCenter Server Appliance

Management Interface to set up and start the services.

The newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller is running on

the target server but the services are not started.

Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance With an

External Platform Services Controller

When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set up

and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller.

Procedure

1Review the introduction to stage 2 of the deployment process and click Next.

2Configure the time settings in the appliance, optionally enable remote SSH access to the appliance,

and click Next.

Option Description

Synchronize time with the ESXi host Enables periodic time synchronization, and VMware Tools sets the time of the

guest operating system to be the same as the time of the ESXi host.

Synchronize time with NTP servers Uses a Network Time Protocol server for synchronizing the time. If you select this

option, you must enter the names or IP addresses of the NTP servers separated

by commas.

3Provide the FQDN or IP address of the Platform Services Controller instance with which you want to

and administrator password, and click Next.

If the Platform Services Controller instance is a Windows installation, provide the system name of the

host machine on which the Platform Services Controller is running.

4On the Ready to complete page, review the configuration settings for the vCenter Server Appliance,

click Finish, and click OK to complete stage 2 of the deployment process and set up the appliance.

5(Optional) After the initial setup finishes, enter the URL from the browser with

https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn/ui or https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn/vsphere-

client to go to the vSphere Web Client and log in to the vCenter Server instance in the

vCenter Server Appliance, or click the https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn:443 to go the

vCenter Server Appliance Getting Started page.

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6Click Close to exit the wizard.

You are redirected to the vCenter Server Appliance Getting Started page.

The newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance joined the vCenter Single Sign-On domain and site of the

Platform Services Controller instance with which you registered the appliance.

What to do next

You can configure high availability for the vCenter Server Appliance. For information about providing

vCenter Server Appliance high availability, see vSphere Availability.

CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

You can use the CLI installer to perform a silent deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller appliance on an ESXi host or vCenter Server instance.

The CLI deployment process includes downloading the vCenter Server Appliance 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.

Important The user name that you use to log in to the machine from which you want to run the CLI

installer, the path to the vCenter Server Appliance installer, the path to your JSON configuration file, and

the string values in your JSON configuration file, including the passwords, must contain only ASCII

characters. Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.

The vCenter Server Appliance ISO file contains templates of JSON files that contain the minimum

configuration parameters that are required for deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller appliance.

The vCenter Server Appliance ISO file contains templates of JSON files that contain the minimum

configuration parameters that are required for deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller appliance. For information about preparing JSON templates for CLI

deployment, see Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment.

Important For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must deploy the

replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful deployment of all

Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent deployments of multiple

vCenter Server appliances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

Prepare Your JSON Conﬁguration File for CLI Deployment

Before you run the CLI installer to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

appliance, you must prepare a JSON file with configuration parameters and their values for your

deployment specification.

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The vCenter Server Appliance installer contains JSON templates for all deployment types. For information

about the templates, see JSON Templates for CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance.

You can deploy an appliance with minimum configurations by setting values to the configuration

parameters in the JSON template for your specification. You can edit the preset values, remove

configuration parameters, and add configuration parameters for custom configurations.

For a complete list of the configuration parameters and their descriptions, navigate to the installer

subdirectory for your operating system and run the vcsa-deploy install --template-help command

or see Deployment Configuration Parameters.

Prerequisites

nYou must be familiar with the JSON syntax.

nDownload and Mount the vCenter Server Appliance Installer.

Procedure

1In the vCenter Server Appliance installer, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer directory, and open

the templates subfolder.

2Copy the deployment templates from the install subfolder to your workspace.

Important The path to the JSON configuration files must contain only ASCII characters. Extended

ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.

3In a text editor, open the template file for your specification.

To ensure the correct syntax of your JSON configuration file, use a JSON editor.

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4Fill in the values for the required configuration parameters and, optionally, enter additional parameters

and their values.

For example, if you want to use an IPv4 DHCP assignment for the network of the appliance, in the

network subsection of the template, change the value of the mode parameter to dhcp and remove the

default configuration parameters that are for a static assignment.

"network": {

"ip_family": "ipv4",

"mode": "dhcp"

Important The string values, including the passwords, must contain only ASCII characters.

Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.

To set a value that contains a backslash (\) or quotation mark (") character, you must precede the

character with the backslash (\) character. For example, "password":"my\"password" sets the

password my"password, "image":"G:\\vcsa\\VMware-vCenter-Server-

Appliance-6.7.0.XXXX-YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova" sets the path G:\vcsa\VMware-vCenter-Server-

Appliance-6.7.0.XXXX-YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova.

The Boolean values must contain only lowercase characters, that is, a value can be either true or

false. For example, "ssh_enable":false.

5(Optional) Use a JSON editor of your choice to validate the JSON file.

6Save in UTF-8 format and close the file.

What to do next

You can create and save additional templates if needed for your deployment specification.

JSON Templates for CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and

Platform Services Controller Appliance

The vCenter Server Appliance installer contains JSON templates that are located in the vcsa-cli-

installer/templates directory. In the install subfolder, you can find eight JSON templates with the

minimum configuration parameters for all deployment types.

For each deployment type, there is one template for deploying the appliance on an ESXi host and another

template for deploying the appliance on a vCenter Server instance.

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Table 2‑9. Deployment JSON Templates Included in the vCenter Server Appliance Installer

Location Template Description

vcsa-cli-

installer\templates\install

embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller on an ESXi

host.

embedded_vCSA_on_VC.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller on a

vCenter Server instance.

embedded_vCSA_replication_on_ESX

i.json

Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller joining an

exsiting Single Sign-On domain on an

ESXi host.

embedded_vCSA_replication_on_VC.

json

Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance

with an embedded

Platform Services Controller joining an

exsiting Single Sign-On domain on a

vCenter Server instance.

PSC_first_instance_on_ESXi.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a

Platform Services Controller appliance as

the first instance in a new vCenter Single

Sign-On domain on an ESXi host.

PSC_first_instance_on_VC.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a

Platform Services Controller appliance as

the first instance in a new vCenter Single

Sign-On domain on a vCenter Server

instance.

PSC_replication_on_ESXi.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a

Platform Services Controller appliance

joining an existing vCenter Single Sign-On

domain on an ESXi host.

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Table 2‑9. Deployment JSON Templates Included in the vCenter Server Appliance Installer

(Continued)

Location Template Description

PSC_replication_on_VC.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a

Platform Services Controller appliance

joining an existing vCenter Single Sign-On

domain on a vCenter Server instance.

vCSA_on_ESXi.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance

with an external

Platform Services Controller on an ESXi

host.

vCSA_on_VC.json Contains the minimum configuration

parameters that are required for

deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance

with an external

Platform Services Controller on a

vCenter Server instance.

Deployment Conﬁguration Parameters

When you prepare your JSON configuration files for CLI deployment, you must set parameters and

values to provide input data for the deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller appliance.

Sections and Subsections of Conﬁguration Parameters in the JSON Deployment Files

The configuration parameters in the JSON configuration files for CLI upgrade are organized in sections

and subsections.

Table 2‑10. Sections and Subsections of Conﬁguration Parameters in the JSON Deployment

Files

Section

Subsecti

on Description

new_vcsa - describes the

appliance that you want to

deploy

esxi Use only if you want to deploy the appliance directly on an ESXi host.

Contains the configuration parameters that describe the target ESXi host. See

Table 2‑11.

Note You must fill in either the esxi or the vc subsection.

vc Use only if you want to deploy the appliance on the inventory of a vCenter Server

instance.

Contains the configuration parameters that describe the target ESXi host or DRS

cluster from the vCenter Server inventory. See Table 2‑12.

Note You must fill in either the vc or the esxi subsection.

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Table 2‑10. Sections and Subsections of Conﬁguration Parameters in the JSON Deployment

Files (Continued)

Section

Subsecti

on Description

applianc

Contains the configuration parameters that describe the appliance. See Table 2‑13.

network Contains the configuration parameters that describe the network settings for the

appliance. See Table 2‑14.

os Contains the configuration parameters that describe the operating system settings for

the appliance. See Table 2‑15.

sso Contains the configuration parameters that describe the vCenter Single Sign-On

settings for the appliance. See Table 2‑16.

ovftool_

argument

Optional subsection for adding arbitrary arguments and their values to the OVF Tool

command that the installer generates.

Important The vCenter Server Appliance installer does not validate the configuration

parameters in the ovftool_arguments subsection. If you set arguments that the OVF

Tool does not recognize, the deployment might fail.

ceip - describes joining the

VMware Customer

Experience Improvement

Program (CEIP)

settings Contains only the ceip_enabled configuration parameter to join or not to join the

VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). See Table 2‑17.

Required only if you are deploying a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller or a Platform Services Controller appliance.

Note If set to true, you must run the CLI deployment command with the --

acknowledge-ceip argument.

For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience

Improvement Program section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

Important The string values, including the passwords, must contain only ASCII characters. Extended

ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.

To set a value that contains a backslash (\) or quotation mark (") character, you must precede the

character with the backslash (\) character. For example, "password":"my\"password" sets the

password my"password, "image":"G:\\vcsa\\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.7.0.XXXX-

YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova" sets the path G:\vcsa\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.7.0.XXXX-

YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova.

The Boolean values must contain only lowercase characters. Can be either true or false. For example,

"ssh_enable":false.

Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section

Table 2‑11. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, esxi Subsection

Name Type Description

hostname string The IP address or FQDN of the target ESXi host on which you want to deploy the

appliance.

username string A user name with administrative privileges on the target ESXi host, for example, root.

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Table 2‑11. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, esxi Subsection (Continued)

Name Type Description

password string The password of the user with administrative privileges on the target ESXi host.

deployment_network string The name of the network to which to connect the appliance.

Note The network must be accessible from the target ESXi host.

Ignored if the target ESXi host has only one network.

datastore string The name of the datastore that you want to store all virtual machine configuration files

and virtual disks of the appliance.

Note The datastore must be accessible from the ESXi host.

The datastore must have enough free space.

port integer The HTTPS reverse proxy port of the target ESXi host.

The default port is 443. Use only if the target ESXi host uses a custom HTTPS reverse

proxy port.

Table 2‑12. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, vc Subsection

Name Type Description

hostname string The IP address or FQDN of the target vCenter Server instance on which you want to

deploy the appliance.

username string vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user name on the target vCenter Server

instance, for example, administrator@vsphere.local.

password string The password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user on the target

vCenter Server instance.

deployment_network string The name of the network to which to connect the appliance.

Note The network must be accessible from the target ESXi host or DRS cluster on

which you want to deploy the appliance.

Ignored if the target ESXi host or DRS cluster has only one network.

datacenter string or

array

The vCenter Server datacenter that contains the target ESXi host or DRS cluster on

which you want to deploy the appliance.

If the datacenter is located in a folder or a structure of folders, the value must be either

a comma-separated list of strings or a comma-separated list as a single string. For

example,

["parent_folder", "child_folder", "datacenter_name"]

"parent_folder, child_folder, datacenter_name"

Note The value is case-sensitive.

datastore string The name of the datastore that you want to store all virtual machine configuration files

and virtual disks of the appliance.

Note The datastore must be accessible from the target ESXi host or DRS cluster.

The datastore must have at least 15 GB of free space.

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Table 2‑12. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, vc Subsection (Continued)

Name Type Description

port integer The HTTPS reverse proxy port of the target vCenter Server instance.

The default port is 443. Use only if the target vCenter Server instance uses a custom

HTTPS reverse proxy port.

target string or

array

The target ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance.

Important You must provide the name that is displayed in the vCenter Server

inventory. For example, if the name of the target ESXi host is an IP address in the

vCenter Server inventory, you cannot provide an FQDN.

If the target ESXi host or DRS cluster is located in a folder or a structure of folders, the

value must be a comma-separated list of strings or a comma-separated list as a single

string. For example,

["parent_folder", "child_folder", "esxi-host.domain.com"]

"parent_folder, child_folder, esxi-host.domain.com"

If the target ESXi host is part of a cluster, use a comma-separated list of strings or a

comma-separated list as a single string to provide the path. For example,

["cluster_name", "esxi-host.domain.com"]

"cluster_name, esxi-host.domain.com"

Note The value is case-sensitive.

vm_folder string Optional. The name of the VM folder to which to add the appliance.

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Table 2‑13. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, appliance Subsection

Name Type Description

thin_disk_mode Boolean Set to true to deploy the appliance with thin virtual disks.

deployment_option string The size of the appliance.

nSet to tiny if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller for up to 10 hosts and 100 virtual machines with the

default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 10 GB of memory, and 250 GB of storage.

nSet to tiny-lstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 10 hosts and 100 virtual

machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 10 GB of memory, and 775 GB of storage.

nSet to tiny-xlstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 10 hosts and 100 virtual

machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 10 GB of memory, and 1650 GB of storage.

nSet to small if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller for up to 100 hosts and 1,000 virtual machines with

the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 16 GB of memory, and 290 GB of storage.

nSet to small-lstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 100 hosts and 1,000 virtual

machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 16 GB of memory, and 820 GB of storage.

nSet to small-xlstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 100 hosts and 1,000 virtual

machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 16 GB of memory, and 1700 GB of storage.

nSet to medium if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller for up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual machines with

the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 24 GB of memory, and 425 GB of storage.

nSet to medium-lstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual

machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 24 GB of memory, and 925 GB of storage.

nSet to medium-xlstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with

an embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual

machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 24 GB of memory, and 1805 GB of storage.

nSet to large if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller for up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines

with the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, and 640 GB of storage.

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Table 2‑13. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, appliance Subsection

(Continued)

Name Type Description

nSet to large-lstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual

machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, and 990 GB of storage.

nSet to large-xlstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual

machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, and 1870 GB of storage.

nSet to xlarge if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller for up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines

with the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 48 GB of memory, and 980 GB of storage.

nSet to xlarge-lstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual

machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 48 GB of memory, and 1030 GB of storage.

nSet to xlarge-xlstorage if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with

an embedded Platform Services Controller for up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual

machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 48 GB of memory, and 1910 GB of storage.

nSet to management-tiny if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with an

external Platform Services Controller for up to 10 hosts and 100 virtual machines

with the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 10 GB of memory, and 250 GB of storage.

nSet to management-tiny-lstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

10 hosts and 100 virtual machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 10 GB of memory, and 775 GB of storage.

nSet to management-tiny-xlstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

10 hosts and 100 virtual machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 10 GB of memory, and 1650 GB of storage.

nSet to management-small if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with

an external Platform Services Controller for up to 100 hosts and 1,000 virtual

machines with the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 16 GB of memory, and 290 GB of storage.

nSet to management-small-lstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

100 hosts and 1,000 virtual machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 16 GB of memory, and 820 GB of storage.

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Table 2‑13. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, appliance Subsection

(Continued)

Name Type Description

nSet to management-small-xlstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

100 hosts and 1,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 16 GB of memory, and 1700 GB of storage.

nSet to management-medium if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with

an external Platform Services Controller for up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual

machines with the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 24 GB of memory, and 425 GB of storage.

nSet to management-medium-lstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

400 hosts and 4,000 virtual machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 24 GB of memory, and 925 GB of storage.

nSet to management-medium-xlstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

400 hosts and 4,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 24 GB of memory, and 1805 GB of storage.

nSet to management-large if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with

an external Platform Services Controller for up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual

machines with the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, and 640 GB of storage.

nSet to management-large-lstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, and 990 GB of storage.

nSet to management-large-xlstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 32 GB of memory, and 1870 GB of storage.

nSet to management-xlarge if you want to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance with

an external Platform Services Controller for up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual

machines with the default storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 48 GB of memory, and 980 GB of storage.

nSet to management-xlarge-lstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines with the large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 48 GB of memory, and 1030 GB of storage.

nSet to management-xlarge-xlstorage if you want to deploy a

vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller for up to

2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size.

Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 48 GB of memory, and 1910 GB of storage.

nSet to infrastructureif you want to deploy a Platform Services Controller

appliance.

Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory, and 60 GB of storage.

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Table 2‑13. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, appliance Subsection

(Continued)

Name Type Description

image string Optional. A local file path or URL to the vCenter Server Appliance installation package.

By default the installer uses the installation package that is included in the ISO file, in

the vcsa folder.

name string The VM name for the appliance.

Must contain only ASCII characters except a percent sign (%), backslash (\), or

forward slash (/) and must be no more than 80 characters in length.

ovftool_path string Optional. A local file path to the OVF Tool executable file.

By default the installer uses the OVF Tool instance that is included in the ISO file, in

the vcsa/ovftool folder.

Table 2‑14. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, network Subsection

Name Type Description

ip_family string IP version for the network of the appliance.

Set to ipv4 or ipv6.

mode string IP assignment for the network of the appliance.

Set to static or dhcp.

ip string IP address for the appliance.

Required only if you use static assignment, that is, if you set the mode parameter to

static.

You must set an IPv4 or IPv6 address that corresponds to the network IP version, that

is, to the value of the ip.family parameter.

An IPv4 address must comply with the RFC 790 guidelines.

An IPv6 address must comply with the RFC 2373 guidelines.

dns_servers string or

array

IP addresses of one or more DNS servers.

To set more than one DNS server, use a comma-separated list of strings or a comma-

separated list as a single string to provide the path. For example,

["x.y.z.a", "x.y.z.b"]

"x.y.z.a, x.y.z.b"

Required only if you use static assignment, that is, if you set the mode parameter to

static.

prefix string Network prefix length.

Use only if the mode parameter is set to static. Remove if the mode parameter is set

to dhcp.

The network prefix length is the number of bits that are set in the subnet mask. For

example, if the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, there are 24 bits in the binary version of

the prefix length, so the network prefix length is 24.

For IPv4 version, the value must be between 0 and 32.

For IPv6 version, the value must be between 0 and 128.

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Table 2‑14. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, network Subsection

(Continued)

Name Type Description

gateway string IP address of the default gateway.

For IPv6 version, the value can be default.

system_name string Primary network identity.

Can be an IP address or FQDN, preferably FQDN.

You cannot change the value of this parameter after the deployment.

The FQDN and dotted-decimal numbers must comply with the RFC 1123 guidelines.

Table 2‑15. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, os Subsection

Name Type Description

password string The password for the root user of the appliance operating system.

The password must contain between 8 and 20 characters, at least one uppercase

letter, at least one lowercase letter, at least one number, and at least one special

character, for example, a dollar sign ($), hash key (#), at sign (@), period (.), or

exclamation mark (!). All characters must be lower ASCII characters without spaces.

ntp_servers string or

array

Optional. Host names or IP addresses of one or more NTP servers for time

synchronization.

To set more than one NTP server, use a comma-separated list of strings or a comma-

separated list as a single string to provide the path. For example,

["x.y.z.a", "x.y.z.b"]

"x.y.z.a, x.y.z.b"

ssh_enable Boolean Set to true to enable SSH administrator login to the appliance.

Note vCenter Server Appliance high availability requires remote SSH access to the

appliance.

time_tools-sync Boolean Optional. Set to true to deploy the appliance with the VMware Tools time

synchronization. VMware Tools synchronizes the time of the appliance with the time of

the ESxi host.

Ignored if you set NTP servers for time synchronization, that is, if you set the

ntp.servers parameter.

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Table 2‑16. Conﬁguration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, sso Subsection

Name Type Description

password string Password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user,

administrator@your_domain_name.

nIf you are deploying a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller or a Platform Services Controller appliance as the

first instance in a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain, you must set the password

for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user.

The password must contain between 8 and 20 characters, at least one uppercase

letter, at least one lowercase letter, at least one number, and at least one special

character, for example, a dollar sign ($), hash key (#), at sign (@), period (.), or

exclamation mark (!). All characters must be ASCII characters.

nIf you are deploying a Platform Services Controller appliance as a replication

partner in an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain, you must provide the

password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user of the partner

Platform Services Controller.

nIf you are deploying a vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller, you must provide the password of the vCenter Single

Sign-On administrator user of the external Platform Services Controller.

domain_name string vCenter Single Sign-On domain name, for example, vsphere.local.

nIf you are deploying a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller or a Platform Services Controller appliance as the

first instance in a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain, you must set the name for

the new vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

nIf you are deploying a vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller or a Platform Services Controller appliance as a

replication partner in an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain, you must

provide the name of the existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

first_instance Boolean Required only if you are deploying a Platform Services Controller appliance.

The default value is true.

Set to false if you want to join the Platform Services Controller appliance to an

existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

Joined Platform Services Controller instances replicate their infrastructure data and

enable Enhanced Linked Mode. For information about managing the

Platform Services Controller services, see Platform Services Controller Administration.

platform_services_contr

oller

string The system name of the external Platform Services Controller.

Required only if you are deploying a vCenter Server Appliance with an external

Platform Services Controller.

replication_partner_hos

tname

string The system name of the partner Platform Services Controller.

Required only if you are deploying a Platform Services Controller appliance as a

replication partner in an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

sso_port integer The HTTPS reverse proxy port of the partner Platform Services Controller.

The default port is 443. Use only if you the partner Platform Services Controller uses a

custom HTTPS reverse proxy port.

site_name string vCenter Single Sign-On name.

Required only if you are deploying an embedded Platform Services Controller

appliance.

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Conﬁguration Parameters in the ceip Section

Table 2‑17. Conﬁguration Parameters in the ceip Section, settings Subsection

Name Type Description

ceip_enabled Boolean Set to true to join the CEIP for this appliance.

Deploy a vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller Appliance by Using the CLI

You can use the CLI installer to perform an unattended deployment of a vCenter Server Appliance or

Platform Services Controller appliance. You must run the CLI deployment from a Windows, Linux, or Mac

machine that is in the network on which you want to deploy the appliance.

Prerequisites

nSee Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller

Appliance.

nPrepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment.

nReview Syntax of the CLI Deployment Command.

nVerify that the user name with which you are logged in to your client machine, the path to the

vCenter Server Appliance installer, the path to your JSON configuration file, and the string values in

your JSON configuration file contain only ASCII characters. Extended ASCII and non-ASCII

characters are unsupported.

Procedure

1Navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer subdirectory for your operating system.

nIf you are running the deployment on Windows OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer\win32

directory.

nIf you are running the deployment on Linux OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer/lin64

directory.

nIf you are running the deployment on Mac OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer/mac

directory.

2(Optional) Run a pre-deployment check without deploying the appliance to verify that you prepared

the deployment template correctly.

vcsa-deploy install --verify-only path_to_the_json_file

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3Run the deployment command.

vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip optional_arguments path_to_the_json_file

Use optional_arguments to enter space-separated arguments to set additional execution parameters

of the deployment command.

For example, you can set the location of the log and other output files that the installer generates.

vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip --log-dir=path_to_the_location

path_to_the_json_file

Syntax of the CLI Deployment Command

You can use command arguments to set the execution parameters of the deployment command.

You can add a space-separated list of arguments to the CLI deployment command.

vcsa-deploy install path_to_the_json_file list_of_arguments

Argument Description

--accept-eula Accepts the end-user license agreement.

Required for executing the deployment command.

--acknowledge-ceip Confirms your acknowledgement of your VMware Customer

Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) participation.

Required if the ceip.enabled parameter is set to true in the

JSON deployment template.

-v, --verbose Adds debug information to the console output.

-t, --terse Hides the console output. Displays only warning and error

messages.

--log-dir LOG_DIR Sets the location of the log and other output files.

--skip-ovftool-verification Performs basic verification of the configuration parameters in the

JSON file and deploys the appliance. Does not perform

verification of the OVF Tool parameters.

--no-esx-ssl-certificate-verification Skips the SSL verification for ESXi connections.

Important Avoid using this option because it might cause

problems during deployment or after deployment because of not

validated identity of the target ESXi host.

--pause-on-warnings Pauses and waits for acknowledgment of warnings.

--verify-only Performs basic verification of the configuration parameters in the

JSON file and verification of the OVF Tool parameters. Does not

deploy the appliance.

--sso-ssl-thumbprint SSL-SHA1-THUMBPRINT Validates server certificate against the supplied SHA1

thumbprint.

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Argument Description

-h, --help Displays the help message for the vcsa-deploy install

command.

--template-help Displays the help message for the use of configuration

parameters in the JSON deployment file.

After the execution finishes, you can get the exit code of the command.

Exit Code Description

0 Command ran successfully

1 Runtime error

2 Validation error

3 Template error

Deploy Multiple vCenter Server Appliances or Platform Services

Controller Appliances Using the CLI

You can deploy multiple instances of the vCenter Server Appliance or the Platform Services Controller

concurrently (in batch mode) using the CLI installer.

To deploy multiple instances concurrently, create JSON templates for all the vCenter Server Applianceand

Platform Services Controller instances in your deployment. The CLI installer assesses the topology of the

deployment using the JSON templates, and determines the order. For this reason, the JSON templates

must use static IP addresses for all vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller instances in the

deployment that are dependant upon one another. For example, you can install two vCenter Server

instances which share a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

Important The JSON templates you create for each appliance must use a static IP address to resolve

the network addresses of other appliances in the deployment upon which they have a dependency.

To perform the batch deployment, place the JSON templates defining your deployment in a single

directory. When invoked, the CLI installer deploys your existing deployment using the topology defined in

the JSON templates.

Procedure

1In your workspace, create a folder to contain the JSON files for batch deployment. For example,

MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy.

2Prepare each JSON configuration file and copy the file to your batch deployment folder. See Prepare

Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment for instructions on configuring the JSON files.

3Navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer subdirectory for your operating system.

nIf you are running the deployment on Windows OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer\win32

directory.

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nIf you are running the deployment on Linux OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer/lin64

directory.

nIf you are running the deployment on Mac OS, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer/mac

directory.

4(Optional) Run a pre-deployment check without deploying the appliance to verify that you prepared

the deployment template correctly. For example:

vcsa-deploy install --verify-only MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy

5Run the deployment command. For example,

vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip optional_arguments MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy

Use optional_arguments to enter space-separated arguments to set additional execution parameters

of the deployment command.

For example, you can set the location of the log and other output files that the installer generates.

vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip --log-dir=path_to_the_location

MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy

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Installing vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on

Windows 3

You can install vCenter Server with an embedded or external Platform Services Controller on a Microsoft

Windows virtual machine or physical server to manage your vSphere environment.

Before you install vCenter Server, download the installer ISO file and mount it to the Windows host

machine on which you want to perform the installation, and then start the installation wizard.

Windows installations of vCenter Server can use either the embedded PostreSQL database or an

external database. Before installing vCenter Server that uses an external database, you must prepare

your database. See Preparing vCenter Server Databases for Install.

For information about the vCenter Server requirements, see vCenter Server for Windows Requirements.

For information about the inputs that are required during the installation of vCenter Server, see Required

Information for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller on Windows.

Important For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must install the

replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful deployment of all

Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent installations of multiple

vCenter Server instances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

After you install vCenter Server, only the user administrator@your_domain_name has the privileges to

The administrator@your_domain_name user can perform the following tasks:

nAdd an identity source in which additional users and groups are defined in vCenter Single Sign-On.

nAssign roles to users and groups to give them privileges.

For information about adding identity sources and giving permissions to the users and groups, see

Platform Services Controller Administration.

Starting with vSphere 6.5, vCenter Server supports mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environment. If you want to set

up the vCenter Server instance to use an IPv6 address version, use the fully qualified domain name

(FQDN) or host name of the host machine. To set up an IPv4 address, the best practice is to use the

FQDN or host name of the host machine, because the IP address can change if assigned by DHCP.

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This chapter includes the following topics:

nvCenter Server for Windows Requirements

nPreparing for Installing vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller on Windows

nRequired Information for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller on Windows

nInstalling vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller on Windows

vCenter Server for Windows Requirements

To install vCenter Server on a Windows virtual machine or physical server, your system must meet

specific hardware and software requirements.

nSynchronize the clocks of the virtual machines on which you plan to install vCenter Server and the

Platform Services Controller. See Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network.

nVerify that the DNS name of the virtual machine or physical server matches the actual full computer

name.

nVerify that the host name of the virtual machine or physical server on which you are installing

vCenter Server complies with RFC 1123 guidelines.

nVerify that the system on which you are installing vCenter Server is not an Active Directory domain

controller.

nIf you plan to use a user account other than the Local System account in which to run your

vCenter Server service, verify that the user account has the following permissions:

nMember of the Administrators group

nLog on as a service

nAct as part of the operating system (if the user is a domain user)

Note Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server services run as child processes of the VMware

Service Lifecycle Manager service.

nVerify that the local policy of the virtual machine or physical server on which you are installing

vCenter Server allows assigning Log on as a batch job rights to new local users.

Note Starting with vSphere 6.5, some vCenter Server processes use separate local users that are

automatically created and added to the local security policy Log on as a batch job. Such new local

users are cm, content-library, eam, imagebuilder, mbcs, netdumper, perfcharts, rbd, vapiEndpoint,

vmware-vpostgres, vsan-health, vsm, vsphere-client, and vsphere-ui.

nIf the system that you use for your vCenter Server installation belongs to a workgroup rather than a

domain, not all functionality is available to vCenter Server. If assigned to a workgroup, the

vCenter Server system is not able to discover all domains and systems available on the network

when using some features. Your host machine must be connected to a domain if you want to add

Active Directory identity sources after the installation.

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nVerify that the LOCAL SERVICE account has read permission on the folder in which vCenter Server

is installed and on the HKLM registry.

nVerify that the connection between the virtual machine or physical server and the domain controller is

working.

Pre-Install Checks for vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on Windows

When you install or upgrade vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller on Windows, the installer

does a pre-check, for example, to verify that enough space is available on the virtual machine or physical

server where you are installing or upgrading vCenter Server, and verifies that the external database, if

any, can be successfully accessed.

When you install Platform Services Controller as an embedded or external instance, vCenter Single Sign-

On is installed as part of Platform Services Controller. During the installation of an external

Platform Services Controller, the installer provides you with the option to join an existing vCenter Single

Sign-On server domain. During the installation of vCenter Server with an external

Platform Services Controller, the installer prompts you to join an existing vCenter Single Sign-On server

domain. When you provide the information about the vCenter Single Sign-On service, the installer uses

the administrator account to check the host name and password, to verify that the details of the vCenter

Single Sign-On server you provided can be authenticated before proceeding with the installation process.

The pre-install checker performs checks for the following aspects of the environment:

nWindows version

nMinimum processor requirements

nMinimum memory requirements

nMinimum disk space requirements

nPermissions on the selected install and data directory

nInternal and external port availability

nExternal database version

nExternal database connectivity

nAdministrator privileges on the Windows machine

nAny credentials that you enter

Additionally, the pre-install checker verifies if Universal C Runtime is installed. This is a Microsoft

Windows operating system component that enables CRT functionality on the Windows OS. If Universal C

Runtime is not installed, you receive an error message.

For information about the minimum storage requirements, see Storage Requirements for vCenter Server

and Platform Services Controller on Windows. For information about the minimum hardware

requirements, see Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller on

Windows.

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Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on Windows

When you install vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller on a virtual machine or physical server

running Microsoft Windows, your system must meet specific hardware requirements.

You can install vCenter Server and the Platform Services Controller on the same virtual machine or

physical server or on different virtual machines or physical servers. When you install vCenter Server with

an embedded Platform Services Controller, you install vCenter Server and the

Platform Services Controller on the same virtual machine or physical server. When you install the

vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller, first install the Platform Services Controller

that contains all of the required services on one virtual machine or physical server, and then install

vCenter Server and the vCenter Server components on another virtual machine or physical server.

Note Installing vCenter Server on a network drive or USB flash drive is not supported.

Table 3‑1. Minimum Recommended Hardware Requirements for Installing vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on Windows

Platform Services

Controller

vCenter

Server with

Embedded

or External

Platform

Services

Controller

for a Tiny

Environment

(up to 10

Hosts, 100

Virtual

Machines)

vCenter

Server with

Embedded

or External

Platform

Services

Controller

for a Small

Environment

(up to 100

Hosts, 1000

Virtual

Machines)

vCenter

Server with

Embedded

or External

Platform

Services

Controller

for a Medium

Environment

(up to 400

Hosts, 4,000

Virtual

Machines)

vCenter

Server with

Embedded

or External

Platform

Services

Controller

for a Large

Environment

(up to 1,000

Hosts,

10,000

Virtual

Machines)

vCenter Server

with an

Embedded or

External

Platform Services

Controller for X-

Large

Environment (up

to 2,000 Hosts,

35,000 Virtual

Machines)

Number of

CPUs

2 2 4 8 16 24

Memory 4 GB RAM 10 GB RAM 16 GB RAM 24 GB RAM 32 GB RAM 48 GB RAM

Note If you want to add an ESXi host with more than 512 LUNs and 2,048 paths to the vCenter Server

inventory, your vCenter Server instance must be suitable for a large or x-large environment.

For the hardware requirements of your database, see the database documentation. The database

requirements are in addition to the vCenter Server requirements if the database and vCenter Server run

on the same machine.

Storage Requirements for vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on Windows

When you install vCenter Server, your system must meet minimum storage requirements.

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The storage requirements per folder depend on the deployment model that you decide to install. During

installation, you can select a folder other than the default C:\Program Files\VMware folder to install

vCenter Server and the Platform Services Controller. You can also select a folder other than the default

C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\ in which to store data.

Table 3‑2. vCenter Server Minimum Storage Requirements Depending On the Deployment

Model

Default Folder

vCenter Server with an

Embedded

Platform Services

Controller

vCenter Server with an

External

Platform Services

Controller

External

Platform Services Controller

Program Files 6 GB 6 GB 1 GB

ProgramData 8 GB 8 GB 2 GB

System folder (to cache the

MSI installer)

3 GB 3 GB 1 GB

Software Requirements for vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on Windows

Verify that your operating system supports vCenter Server.

vCenter Server requires a 64-bit operating system, and the 64-bit system DSN is required for

vCenter Server to connect to the external database.

The earliest Windows Server version that vCenter Server supports is Windows Server 2008 SP2. Your

Windows Server must have the latest updates and patches installed. For a full list of supported operating

systems, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2091273.

Database Requirements for vCenter Server on Windows

vCenter Server requires a database to store and organize server data.

Each vCenter Server instance must have its own database. For environments with up to 20 hosts and

200 virtual machines, you can use the bundled PostgreSQL database that the vCenter Server installer

can install and set up for you during the vCenter Server installation. A larger installation requires a

supported external database for the size of the environment.

During vCenter Server installation you must select to install the embedded database or point the

vCenter Server system to any existing supported database. vCenter Server supports Oracle and

Microsoft SQL Server databases.

For information about supported database server versions, see the VMware Product Interoperability

Matrix at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php.

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Required Ports for vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller

The vCenter Server system, both on Windows and in the appliance, must be able to send data to every

managed host and receive data from the vSphere Web Client and the Platform Services Controller

services. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and

destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.

If a port is in use or is blacklisted, the vCenter Server installer displays an error message. You must use

another port number to proceed with the installation. There are internal ports that are used only for inter-

process communication.

VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated

ports for data from vCenter Server. If a built-in firewall exists between any of these elements, the installer

opens the ports during the installation or upgrade process. For custom firewalls, you must manually open

the required ports. If you have a firewall between two managed hosts and you want to perform source or

target activities, such as migration or cloning, you must configure a means for the managed hosts to

receive data.

Note In Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and later, firewall is enabled by default.

Table 3‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

22 TCP System port for SSHD. Appliance deployments

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

53 DNS service Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

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Table 3‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

80 TCP vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct

HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects

requests to HTTPS port 443. This

redirection is useful if you accidentally

use http://server instead of https://server.

WS-Management (also requires port 443

to be open).

If you use a Microsoft SQL database that

is stored on the same virtual machine or

physical server as the vCenter Server,

port 80 is used by the SQL Reporting

Service. When you install or upgrade

vCenter Server, the installer prompts you

to change the HTTP port for

vCenter Server. Change the

vCenter Server HTTP port to a custom

value to ensure a successful installation

or upgrade.

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

88 TCP Active Directory server. This port must be

open for host to join Active Directory. If

you use native Active Directory, the port

must be open on both vCenter Server

and Platform Services Controller.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

389 TCP/UDP This port must be open on the local and

all remote instances of vCenter Server.

This is the LDAP port number for the

Directory Services for the vCenter Server

group. If another service is running on

this port, it might be preferable to remove

it or change its port to a different port.

You can run the LDAP service on any

port from 1025 through 65535.

If this instance is serving as the Microsoft

Windows Active Directory, change the

port number from 389 to an available port

from 1025 through 65535.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

Platform Services

Controller

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Table 3‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

443 TCP The default port that the vCenter Server

system uses to listen for connections

from the vSphere Web Client. To enable

the vCenter Server system to receive

data from the vSphere Web Client, open

port 443 in the firewall.

The vCenter Server system also uses

port 443 to monitor data transfer from

SDK clients.

This port is also used for the following

services:

nWS-Management (also requires port

80 to be open)

nThird-party network management

client connections to vCenter Server

nThird-party network management

clients access to hosts

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

vCenter Server

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

514 TCP/UDP vSphere Syslog Collector port for

vCenter Server on Windows and vSphere

Syslog Service port for

vCenter Server Appliance

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

636 TCP vCenter Single Sign-On LDAPS

For backward compatibility with vSphere

6.0 only.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

During upgrade from

vSphere 6.0 only.

vCenter Server 6.0 to

Platform Services

Controller 6.5

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Table 3‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

902 TCP/UDP The default port that the vCenter Server

system uses to send data to managed

hosts. Managed hosts also send a

regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to

the vCenter Server system. This port

must not be blocked by firewalls between

the server and the hosts or between

hosts.

Port 902 must not be blocked between

the VMware Host Client and the hosts.

The VMware Host Client uses this port to

display virtual machine consoles

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

1514 TCP vSphere Syslog Collector TLS port for

vCenter Server on Windows and vSphere

Syslog Service TLS port for

vCenter Server Appliance

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

2012 TCP Control interface RPC for vCenter Single

Sign-On

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller to

Platform Services

Controller

2014 TCP RPC port for all VMCA (VMware

Certificate Authority) APIs

Important You can change this port

number during the

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

2015 TCP DNS management Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

Platform Services

Controller to

Platform Services

Controller

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Table 3‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

2020 TCP/UDP Authentication framework management

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller installations

on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server to

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller to

vCenter Server

5480 TCP Appliance Management Interface

Open endpoint serving all HTTPS,

XMLRPS and JSON-RPC requests over

HTTPS.

Appliance deployments

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

6500 TCP/UDP ESXi Dump Collector port

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

6501 TCP Auto Deploy service

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

6502 TCP Auto Deploy management

Important You can change this port

number during the vCenter Server

installations on Windows.

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

7080,

12721

TCP Secure Token Service

Note Internal ports

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

7081 TCP VMware Platform Services Controller

Web Client

Note Internal port

Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

Platform Services

Controller

8200,

8201,

8300,

8301

TCP Appliance management

Note Internal ports

Appliance deployments

nvCenter Server

nPlatform Services

Controller

8084 TCP vSphere Update Manager SOAP port

The port used by vSphere Update

Manager client plug-in to connect to the

vSphere Update Manager SOAP server.

Appliance deployments

of vCenter Server

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Table 3‑3. Ports Required for Communication Between Components (Continued)

Port Protocol Description Required for

Used for Node-to-Node

Communication

9084 TCP vSphere Update Manager Web Server

Port

The HTTP port used by ESXi hosts to

access host patch files from vSphere

Update Manager server.

Appliance deployments

of vCenter Server

9087 TCP vSphere Update Manager Web SSL Port

The HTTPS port used by vSphere

Update Manager client plug-in to upload

host upgrade files to vSphere Update

Manager server.

Appliance deployments

of vCenter Server

9443 TCP vSphere Web Client HTTPS Windows installations

and appliance

deployments of

vCenter Server

To configure the vCenter Server system to use a different port to receive vSphere Web Client data, see

the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.

For more information about firewall configuration, see the vSphere Security documentation.

DNS Requirements for vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on Windows

You install or upgrade vCenter Server, like any other network server, on a host machine with a fixed IP

address and well-known DNS name, so that clients can reliably access the service.

Assign a static IP address and host name to the Windows server that will host the vCenter Server system.

This IP address must have a valid (internal) domain name system (DNS) registration. When you install

vCenter Server and the Platform Services Controller, you must provide the fully qualified domain name

(FQDN) or the static IP of the host machine on which you are performing the install or upgrade. The

recommendation is to use the FQDN.

Ensure that DNS reverse lookup returns an FQDN when queried with the IP address of the host machine

on which vCenter Server is installed. When you install or upgrade vCenter Server, the installation or

upgrade of the Web server component that supports the vSphere Web Client fails if the installer cannot

look up the fully qualified domain name of the vCenter Server host machine from its IP address. Reverse

lookup is implemented using PTR records.

If you plan to use an FQDN for the virtual machine or physical server, you must verify that the FQDN is

resolvable.

You can use the nslookup command to verify that the DNS reverse lookup service returns an FQDN

when queried with the IP address and to verify that the FQDN is resolvable.

nslookup -nosearch -nodefname FQDN_or_IP_address

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If you use DHCP instead of a static IP address for vCenter Server, make sure that the vCenter Server

computer name is updated in the domain name service (DNS). If you can ping the computer name, the

name is updated in DNS.

Ensure that the ESXi host management interface has a valid DNS resolution from the vCenter Server and

all vSphere Web Client instances. Ensure that the vCenter Server has a valid DNS resolution from all

ESXi hosts and all vSphere Web Clients.

vSphere Web Client Software Requirements

Make sure that your browser supports the vSphere Web Client.

The vSphere Web Client 6.7 requires Adobe Flash Player v. 16 to 23. For best performance and the most

recent security updates, use Adobe Flash Player 23.

VMware has tested and supports the following guest operating systems and browser versions for the

vSphere Web Client. For best performance, use Google Chrome.

Table 3‑4. Supported Guest Operating Systems and Minimum Browser Versions for the

vSphere Web Client

Operating system Browser

Windows Microsoft Internet Explorer v. 10.0.19 and later.

Mozilla Firefox v. 39 and later.

Google Chrome v. 34 and later.

Mac OS Mozilla Firefox v. 39 and later.

Google Chrome v. 34 and later.

Preparing for Installing vCenter Server and

Platform Services Controller on Windows

Before you install vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller, you must download the vCenter Server

installer ISO file and mount it to the Windows virtual machine or physical server on which you want to

install vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller.

If you plan to use an external vCenter Server database, before you install vCenter Server, you must set

up the database.

Download the vCenter Server Installer for Windows

Download the .iso installer for vCenter Server for Windows and the associated vCenter Server

components and support tools.

Prerequisites

Create a My VMware account at https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/.

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Procedure

1Download the vCenter Server installer from the VMware Web site at

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads.

vCenter Server is part of VMware vCloud Suite and VMware vSphere, listed under Datacenter &

Cloud Infrastructure.

2VMware provides a sha-1 hash, a sha-256 hash, or an MD5 message digest for software downloads.

To confirm file integrity, use a sha-1, sha-256, and/or a MD5 utility on your computer to calculate your

own hash for files downloaded from the VMware web site.

See the VMware Web site topic Using Cryptographic Hashes at

http://www.vmware.com/download/md5.html.

3Mount the ISO image to the Windows virtual machine or physical server on which you want to install

vCenter Server for Windows.

Preparing vCenter Server Databases for Install

vCenter Server requires a database to store and organize server data. For vCenter Server on Windows,

you can either use the bundled PostgreSQL database that can be installed and configured together with

vCenter Server, or you can set up an external database prior to installing vCenter Server.

vCenter Server for Windows supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server as external databases.

You can configure an external database manually or by using a script. In addition, the data source name

user must have a specific list of permissions.

The database passwords are stored in clear text on the Windows virtual machine or physical host on

which you install vCenter Server and in the vCenter Server Appliance. The files containing the passwords

are protected by using the operating system protection, that is, you must be a Windows local

administrator or a Linux root user to access and read these files.

vCenter Server instances cannot share the same database schema. Multiple vCenter Server databases

can reside on the same database server, or they can be separated across multiple database servers. For

Oracle databases, which have the concept of schema objects, you can run multiple vCenter Server

instances in a single database server if you have a different schema owner for each vCenter Server

instance. You can also use a dedicated Oracle database server for each vCenter Server instance.

You cannot install vCenter Server and point to an older external vCenter Server database. You can

upgrade the old vCenter Server database to the latest version only by upgrading the vCenter Server

instance connected to that database. For information about upgrading vCenter Server, see vSphere

Upgrade.

vCenter Server Database Conﬁguration Notes

After you select a supported database type, make sure you understand any special configuration

requirements.

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Table 3‑5 is not a complete list of databases supported with vCenter Server for Windows. For information

about specific database versions and service pack configurations supported with vCenter Server, see the

VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes. Only special database configuration notes not listed in the

Product Interoperability Matrixes are provided in Table 3‑5.

vCenter Server databases require a UTF code set.

Contact your DBA for the appropriate database credentials.

Table 3‑5. Conﬁguration Notes for Databases Supported with vCenter Server

Database Type Configuration Notes

Embedded PostgreSQL For vCenter Server 6.7, the bundled PostgreSQL database is suitable for environments with up to

20 hosts and 200 virtual machines.

Important If you use the embedded PostgreSQL database, uninstalling vCenter Server on

Windows, uninstalls the embedded database, and all data is lost.

Microsoft SQL Server 2012

SP3

Ensure that the machine has a valid ODBC DSN entry.

Microsoft SQL Server 2014

SP2

Ensure that the machine has a valid ODBC DSN entry.

Oracle 11g and Oracle 12c Ensure that the machine has a valid ODBC DSN entry.

After you complete the vCenter Server installation, apply the latest patch to the Oracle client and

server.

Conﬁgure Microsoft SQL Server Databases

To use a Microsoft SQL database for your vCenter Server repository, configure your database to work

with vCenter Server.

You can install and configure the Microsoft SQL Server database on the same machine on which you plan

to install vCenter Server. You can install and configure the Microsoft SQL Server database on a separate

machine.

Procedure

1Prepare the vCenter Server SQL Server Database

You first create a database and user for vCenter Server. Then you assign permissions to the

vCenter Server database user either by using the existing dbo schema and dbo_owner role or by

creating custom database schema and roles.

2(Optional) Use a Script to Create Microsoft SQL Server Database Objects Manually

This topic describes how to create database objects manually instead of letting the vCenter Server

installer create the data objects automatically.

3Configure a SQL Server ODBC Connection

After you create and configure a SQL Server database and user for vCenter Server, you must create

a 64-bit DSN on the machine on which you plan to install vCenter Server. During the vCenter Server

installation, you use the DSN to establish a connection between vCenter Server and the database.

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4Configure Microsoft SQL Server TCP/IP for JDBC

If the Microsoft SQL Server database has TCP/IP disabled and the dynamic ports are not set, the

JDBC connection remains closed. The closed connection causes the vCenter Server statistics to

malfunction. You can configure the server TCP/IP for JDBC.

Prepare the vCenter Server SQL Server Database

You first create a database and user for vCenter Server. Then you assign permissions to the

vCenter Server database user either by using the existing dbo schema and dbo_owner role or by creating

custom database schema and roles.

Prerequisites

sysadmin privileges.

Prepare the vCenter Server Database by Using the dbo Schema and the db_owner Database

Role

The simplest way to assign permissions for a vCenter Server database user is through the database role

db_owner.

You must first create a database and user for vCenter Server. Then you can use the existing dbo_owner

database role and let the vCenter Server installer create the default dbo schema that assigns database

user permissions to that role. You must also enable database monitoring for the user before you install

vCenter Server. See Database Permission Requirements for vCenter Server.

To perform the following procedure, you can either use the graphical user interface or run scripts. The

vCenter Server installer package contains example scripts in the vCenter-

Server\dbschema\DB_and_schema_creation_scripts_PostgreSQL.txt file.

Procedure

1Create a database and user for vCenter Server.

a In the master database, create a database for vCenter Server.

b Create a database user for vCenter Server and map it to the vCenter Server and msdb

databases.

For example, to create the database VCDB and user vpxuser, you can run the following script:

use master

CREATE DATABASE VCDB ON PRIMARY

(NAME = N'vcdb', FILENAME = N'C:\database_path\VCDB.mdf', SIZE = 10MB, FILEGROWTH = 10% )

LOG ON

(NAME = N'vcdb_log', FILENAME = N'C:\database_path\VCDB.ldf', SIZE = 1000KB, FILEGROWTH = 10%)

COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

use VCDB

CREATE LOGIN vpxuser WITH PASSWORD=N'vpxuser!0', DEFAULT_DATABASE=VCDB,

DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=us_english, CHECK_POLICY=OFF

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CREATE USER vpxuser for LOGIN vpxuser

use MSDB

CREATE USER vpxuser for LOGIN vpxuser

You now have a Microsoft SQL Server database that you can use with vCenter Server.

2Assign the db_owner role to the vCenter Server database user on both the vCenter Server and msdb

databases.

For example, to assign the db_owner role to the vpxuser user, you can run the following script:

use VCDB

sp_addrolemember @rolename = 'db_owner', @membername = 'vpxuser'

use MSDB

sp_addrolemember @rolename = 'db_owner', @membername = 'vpxuser'

3Enable database monitoring for the vCenter Server database user.

For example, to grant database disk size monitoring permissions to the vpxuser user, you can run the

following script:

use master

grant VIEW SERVER STATE to vpxuser

GRANT VIEW ANY DEFINITION TO vpxuser

When you install vCenter Server, the installer uses the default dbo schema to assign permissions to the

db_owner role.

Prepare the vCenter Server Database by Creating Custom Database Schema and Roles

As an alternative to using the db_owner database role, experienced database administrators can set

permissions by creating database schema and roles manually, which ensures greater control over

database permissions.

You must first create a database and user for vCenter Server. Then you can create a custom schema and

new database roles for the database user. You must also enable database monitoring for the user before

you install vCenter Server. See Database Permission Requirements for vCenter Server.

To perform the following procedure, you can either use the graphical user interface or run scripts. The

vCenter Server installer package contains example scripts in the vCenter-

Server\dbschema\DB_and_schema_creation_scripts_PostgreSQL.txt file.

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Procedure

1Create a database and user for vCenter Server.

a In the master database, create a database for vCenter Server.

b Create a database user for vCenter Server and map it to the vCenter Server and msdb

databases.

For example, to create the database VCDB and user vpxuser, you can run the following script:

use master

CREATE DATABASE VCDB ON PRIMARY

(NAME = N'vcdb', FILENAME = N'C:\database_path\VCDB.mdf', SIZE = 10MB, FILEGROWTH = 10% )

LOG ON

(NAME = N'vcdb_log', FILENAME = N'C:\database_path\VCDB.ldf', SIZE = 1000KB, FILEGROWTH = 10%)

COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

use VCDB

CREATE LOGIN vpxuser WITH PASSWORD=N'vpxuser!0', DEFAULT_DATABASE=VCDB,

DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=us_english, CHECK_POLICY=OFF

CREATE USER vpxuser for LOGIN vpxuser

use MSDB

CREATE USER vpxuser for LOGIN vpxuser

You now have a Microsoft SQL Server database that you can use with vCenter Server.

2In the vCenter Server database, create a database schema and assign it to the vCenter Server

database user.

For example, to create the schema VMW in VCDB and assign it to the vpxuser user, you can run the

following script:

use VCDB

CREATE SCHEMA VMW

ALTER USER vpxuser WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA =VMW

3In the vCenter Server database, create and grant privileges to the VC_ADMIN_ROLE and

VC_USER_ROLE database roles and assign them to the vCenter Server database user.

For example, to create the roles in VCDB and assign them to the vpxuser user, you can run the

following script:

use VCDB

if not exists (SELECT name FROM sysusers WHERE issqlrole=1 AND name = 'VC_ADMIN_ROLE')

CREATE ROLE VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

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GRANT ALTER ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

GRANT REFERENCES ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

GRANT INSERT ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

GRANT CREATE TABLE to VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

GRANT CREATE VIEW to VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

GRANT CREATE Procedure to VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

if not exists (SELECT name FROM sysusers WHERE issqlrole=1 AND name = 'VC_USER_ROLE')

CREATE ROLE VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT SELECT ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT INSERT ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT DELETE ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT UPDATE ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON SCHEMA :: VMW to VC_USER_ROLE

sp_addrolemember VC_USER_ROLE , vpxuser

sp_addrolemember VC_ADMIN_ROLE , vpxuser

4In the msdb database, create and grant privileges to the VC_ADMIN_ROLE database role and assign

it to the vCenter Server database user.

For example, to create the roles and assign them to the vpxuser user, you can run the following

script:

use MSDB

if not exists (SELECT name FROM sysusers WHERE issqlrole=1 AND name = 'VC_ADMIN_ROLE')

CREATE ROLE VC_ADMIN_ROLE;

GRANT SELECT on msdb.dbo.syscategories to VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT SELECT on msdb.dbo.sysjobsteps to VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT SELECT ON msdb.dbo.sysjobs to VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT SELECT ON msdb.dbo.sysjobs_view to VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_job TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_delete_job TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_update_job TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE

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GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobschedule TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_category TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE

sp_addrolemember VC_ADMIN_ROLE , vpxuser

Note The VC_ADMIN_ROLE role in the msdb database is required only during installation and

upgrade of vCenter Server. After the installation or upgrade, you can revoke the role and leave it as

inactive for future upgrades, or you can remove it for increased security.

5Enable database monitoring for the vCenter Server database user.

For example, to grant database disk size monitoring permissions to the vpxuser user, you can run the

following script:

use master

grant VIEW SERVER STATE to vpxuser

GRANT VIEW ANY DEFINITION TO vpxuser

(Optional) Use a Script to Create Microsoft SQL Server Database Objects Manually

This topic describes how to create database objects manually instead of letting the vCenter Server

installer create the data objects automatically.

Procedure

1Log in to a Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio session with the vCenter Server database user

account that you created on the vCenter Server and msdb databases.

2In the vCenter Server installation package, locate the dbschema scripts in the vCenter-

Server/dbschema directory.

3Open the VCDB_mssql.SQL and the TopN_DB_mssql.sql files by using Microsoft SQL Server

Management Studio and replace all occurrences of $schema with your schema name.

4Open the VCDB_views_mssql.sql file by using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and after

each occurrence of ;, insert a new line and write go.

5Run the scripts in a sequence on the database.

The DBO user must own the objects created by these scripts. Open the scripts one at a time in

Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and press F5 to execute each script in the following order:

aVCDB_mssql.SQL

binsert_stats_proc_mssql.sql

cload_stats_proc_mssql.sql

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dpurge_stat2_proc_mssql.sql

epurge_stat3_proc_mssql.sql

fpurge_usage_stats_proc_mssql.sql

gstats_rollup1_proc_mssql.sql

hstats_rollup2_proc_mssql.sql

istats_rollup3_proc_mssql.sql

jcleanup_events_mssql.sql

kdelete_stats_proc_mssql.sql

lupsert_last_event_proc_mssql.sql

mload_usage_stats_proc_mssql.sql

nTopN_DB_mssql.sql

ocalc_topn1_proc_mssql.sql

pcalc_topn2_proc_mssql.sql

qcalc_topn3_proc_mssql.sql

rcalc_topn4_proc_mssql.sql

sclear_topn1_proc_mssql.sql

tclear_topn2_proc_mssql.sql

uclear_topn3_proc_mssql.sql

vclear_topn4_proc_mssql.sql

wrule_topn1_proc_mssql.sql

xrule_topn2_proc_mssql.sql

yrule_topn3_proc_mssql.sql

zrule_topn4_proc_mssql.sql

aa process_license_snapshot_mssql.sql

ab l_stats_rollup3_proc_mssql.sql

ac l_purge_stat2_proc_mssql.sql

ad l_purge_stat3_proc_mssql.sql

ae l_stats_rollup1_proc_mssql.sql

af l_stats_rollup2_proc_mssql.sql

ag VCDB_views_mssql.sql

6(Optional) Run the scripts to enable database health monitoring.

ajob_dbm_performance_data_mssql.sql

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bprocess_performance_data_mssql.sql

7For all supported editions of Microsoft SQL Server except Microsoft SQL Server Express, run the

scripts to set up scheduled jobs on the database.

These scripts ensure that the SQL Server Agent service is running.

ajob_schedule1_mssql.sql

bjob_schedule2_mssql.sql

cjob_schedule3_mssql.sql

djob_cleanup_events_mssql.sql

ejob_topn_past_day_mssql.sql

fjob_topn_past_week_mssql.sql

gjob_topn_past_month_mssql.sql

hjob_topn_past_year_mssql.sql

8For all the procedures you created in Step 5, grant the execute privilege to the vCenter Server

database user in the vCenter Server database.

For example, to grant execute privilege for the procedures to the vpxuser user, you can run the

following script.

grant execute on insert_stats_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on purge_stat2_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on purge_stat3_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on purge_usage_stat_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on stats_rollup1_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on stats_rollup2_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on stats_rollup3_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on cleanup_events_tasks_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on delete_stats_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on upsert_last_event_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on load_usage_stats_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on load_stats_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on calc_topn1_proc to v

grant execute on calc_topn2_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on calc_topn3_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on calc_topn4_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on clear_topn1_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on clear_topn2_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on clear_topn3_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on clear_topn4_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on rule_topn1_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on rule_topn2_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on rule_topn3_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on rule_topn4_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on process_license_snapshot_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on l_stats_rollup3_proc to vpxuser

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grant execute on l_purge_stat2_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on l_purge_stat3_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on l_stats_rollup1_proc to vpxuser

grant execute on l_stats_rollup2_proc to vpxuser

If you ran the script process_performance_data_mssql.sql in Step 5, grant the following execute

privilege to the vCenter Server database.

grant execute on process_performance_data_proc to vpxuser

You created the vCenter Server tables manually.

Note During the vCenter Server installation, when a database reinitialization warning message appears,

select Do not overwrite, leave my existing database in place and continue the installation.

Conﬁgure a SQL Server ODBC Connection

After you create and configure a SQL Server database and user for vCenter Server, you must create a

64-bit DSN on the machine on which you plan to install vCenter Server. During the vCenter Server

installation, you use the DSN to establish a connection between vCenter Server and the database.

If you use SQL Server for vCenter Server, do not use the master or any other system database.

See your Microsoft SQL ODBC documentation for specific instructions for configuring the SQL Server

ODBC connection.

Prerequisites

Deploy SQL Native Client version 10 or 11.

Procedure

1On the machine on which you plan to install vCenter Server, select Start > Administrative Tools >

Data Sources (ODBC).

2On the System DSN tab, modify an existing or create a new SQL Server ODBC connection.

nTo modify an existing SQL Server ODBC connection, select the connection from the System Data

Source list and click Configure.

Important The existing DSN must use SQL Native Client version 10 or 11.

nTo create a new SQL Server ODBC connection, click Add, select SQL Native Client, and click

Finish .

3In the Name text box, enter an ODBC data source name (DSN).

For example, VMware vCenter Server.

4(Optional) In the Description text box, enter an ODBC DSN description.

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5In the Server text box, enter the IP address or FQDN of the SQL Server and, if you want to use a

non-default port to access the SQL Server, enter a custom port separated by a comma.

For example, if the IP address of your SQL Server is 10.160.10.160 and you want to access the

server by using custom port 8347, enter 10.160.10.160,8347.

Note You cannot use a database server alias to create a DSN.

6Select an authentication method.

nIntegrate Windows authentication.

Additionally, you can also enter the Service Principal Name (SPN).

Important You cannot use this option if the vCenter Server service is running under the

Microsoft Windows built-in system account.

nSQL Server authentication.

Enter your SQL Server login name and password.

7Select the database created for the vCenter Server system from the Change the default database

to menu.

8Click Finish.

9Test the data source by selecting Test Data Source and clicking OK from the ODBC Microsoft SQL

Server Setup menu.

10 Verify that the SQL Agent is running on your database server.

Conﬁgure Microsoft SQL Server TCP/IP for JDBC

If the Microsoft SQL Server database has TCP/IP disabled and the dynamic ports are not set, the JDBC

connection remains closed. The closed connection causes the vCenter Server statistics to malfunction.

You can configure the server TCP/IP for JDBC.

This task applies to remote Microsoft SQL Server database servers. You can skip this task if your

database is located on the same machine as vCenter Server.

Procedure

1Select Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server > Configuration Tool > SQL Server

Configuration Manager.

2Select SQL Server Network Configuration > Protocols for Instance name.

3Enable TCP/IP.

4Open TCP/IP Properties.

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5On the Protocol tab, make the following entries.

Enabled Yes

Listen All Yes

Keep Alive 30000

6On the IP Addresses tab, make the following selections.

Active Yes

TCP Dynamic Ports 0

7Restart the SQL Server service from SQL Server Configuration Manager > SQL Server Services.

8Start the SQL Server Browser service from SQL Server Configuration Manager > SQL Server

Services.

Conﬁgure Oracle Databases

To use an Oracle database for your vCenter Server repository, configure your database to work with

vCenter Server.

You can install and configure the Oracle database on the same machine on which you plan to install

vCenter Server. You can install and configure the Oracle database on a separate machine.

Procedure

1Prepare the vCenter Server Oracle Database

To use an Oracle database with vCenter Server, you must create the database with certain

tablespaces and privileges, and the database user with certain permissions.

2(Optional) Use a Script to Create the Oracle Database Schema

The vCenter Server installer creates the schema during installation. For experienced database

administrators who need more control over schema creation because of environmental constraints,

you can optionally use a script to create your database schema.

3Create a Net Service Name

To configure an Oracle ODBC DSN, you must have a net service name for your database. On the

machine on which your Oracle database is running, you must create a net service name for the

vCenter Server tablespace.

4Configure an Oracle ODBC Connection

After you create and configure an Oracle database and user for vCenter Server, you must create a

64-bit DSN on the machine on which you plan to install vCenter Server. During the vCenter Server

installation, you use the DSN to establish a connection between vCenter Server and the database.

Prepare the vCenter Server Oracle Database

To use an Oracle database with vCenter Server, you must create the database with certain tablespaces

and privileges, and the database user with certain permissions.

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You must first create a tablespace and user for vCenter Server. Then you grant permissions to the

database user. You must also enable database monitoring for the user before you install vCenter Server.

See Database Permission Requirements for vCenter Server.

To perform the following procedure, you can either use the graphical user interface or run scripts. The

vCenter Server installer package contains example scripts in the vCenter-

Server\dbschema\DB_and_schema_creation_scripts_PostgreSQL.txt file.

Prerequisites

Procedure

1Create a tablespace for vCenter Server.

For example, to create the tablespace VPX, you can run the following script:

CREATE SMALLFILE TABLESPACE "VPX" DATAFILE 'C:\database_path\vpx01.dbf'

SIZE 1G AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 10M MAXSIZE UNLIMITED LOGGING EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL SEGMENT

SPACE MANAGEMENT AUTO;

2Create a database user with the correct permissions for vCenter Server.

For example, to create the VPXADMIN user, you can run the following script:

CREATE USER "VPXADMIN" PROFILE "DEFAULT" IDENTIFIED BY "oracle" DEFAULT TABLESPACE "VPX" ACCOUNT

UNLOCK;

grant connect to VPXADMIN;

grant resource to VPXADMIN;

grant create view to VPXADMIN;

grant create sequence to VPXADMIN;

grant create table to VPXADMIN;

grant create materialized view to VPXADMIN;

grant execute on dbms_lock to VPXADMIN;

grant execute on dbms_job to VPXADMIN;

grant select on dba_lock to VPXADMIN;

grant select on dba_tablespaces to VPXADMIN;

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grant select on dba_temp_files to VPXADMIN;

grant select on dba_data_files to VPXADMIN;

grant select on v_$session to VPXADMIN;

grant unlimited tablespace to VPXADMIN;

By default, the RESOURCE role has the CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE TABLE, and CREATE

SEQUENCE privileges assigned. If the RESOURCE role lacks these privileges, grant them to the

vCenter Server database user.

Note Instead of granting unlimited tablespace, you can set a specific tablespace quota. The

recommended quota is unlimited with a minimum of at least 500MB. To set an unlimited quota, use

the following command.

alter user "VPXADMIN" quota unlimited on "VPX";

If you set a limited quota, monitor the remaining available tablespace to avoid the following error.

ORA-01536: space quota exceeded for tablespace 'tablespace'

You now have an Oracle database user for vCenter Server.

3Enable database monitoring for the vCenter Server database user.

For example, to grant database disk size monitoring permissions to the VPXADMIN user, you can run

the following script:

grant select on v_$system_event to VPXADMIN;

grant select on v_$sysmetric_history to VPXADMIN;

grant select on v_$sysstat to VPXADMIN;

grant select on dba_data_files to VPXADMIN;

grant select on v_$loghist to VPXADMIN;

(Optional) Use a Script to Create the Oracle Database Schema

The vCenter Server installer creates the schema during installation. For experienced database

administrators who need more control over schema creation because of environmental constraints, you

can optionally use a script to create your database schema.

Procedure

1Open a SQL*Plus window with a user that has schema owner rights on the vCenter Server database.

2Locate the dbschema scripts in the vCenter Server installation package /installation

directory/vCenter-Server/dbschema directory.

3In SQL*Plus, run the scripts in a sequence on the database.

aVCDB_oracle.SQL

bVCDB_views_oracle.SQL

cinsert_stats_proc_oracle.sql

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dload_stats_proc_oracle.sql

epurge_stat2_proc_oracle.sql

fpurge_stat3_proc_oracle.sql

gpurge_usage_stats_proc_oracle.sql

hstats_rollup1_proc_oracle.sql

istats_rollup2_proc_oracle.sql

jstats_rollup3_proc_oracle.sql

kcleanup_events_oracle.sql

ldelete_stats_proc_oracle.sql

mload_usage_stats_proc_oracle.sql

nTopN_DB_oracle.sql

ocalc_topn1_proc_oracle.sql

pcalc_topn2_proc_oracle.sql

qcalc_topn3_proc_oracle.sql

rcalc_topn4_proc_oracle.sql

sclear_topn1_proc_oracle.sql

tclear_topn2_proc_oracle.sql

uclear_topn3_proc_oracle.sql

vclear_topn4_proc_oracle.sql

wrule_topn1_proc_oracle.sql

xrule_topn2_proc_oracle.sql

yrule_topn3_proc_oracle.sql

zrule_topn4_proc_oracle.sql

aa process_license_snapshot_oracle.sql

ab l_purge_stat2_proc_oracle.sql

ac l_purge_stat3_proc_oracle.sql

ad l_stats_rollup1_proc_oracle.sql

ae l_stats_rollup2_proc_oracle.sql

af l_stats_rollup3_proc_oracle.sql

4(Optional) You can also run the following scripts to enable database health monitoring.

ajob_dbm_performance_data_oracle.sql

bprocess_performance_data_oracle.sql

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5For all supported editions of Oracle Server, run the scripts to set up scheduled jobs on the database.

ajob_schedule1_oracle.sql

bjob_schedule2_oracle.sql

cjob_schedule3_oracle.sql

djob_cleanup_events_oracle.sql

ejob_topn_past_day_oracle.sql

fjob_topn_past_week_oracle.sql

gjob_topn_past_month_oracle.sql

hjob_topn_past_year_oracle.sql

You created the vCenter Server tables manually.

Note During the vCenter Server installation, when a database reinitialization warning message appears,

select Do not overwrite, leave my existing database in place and continue the installation.

Create a Net Service Name

To configure an Oracle ODBC DSN, you must have a net service name for your database. On the

machine on which your Oracle database is running, you must create a net service name for the

vCenter Server tablespace.

Procedure

1Use a text editor or the Net8 Configuration Assistant to open the tnsnames.ora file located in the

directory C:\Oracle\Oraxx\NETWORK\ADMIN, where xx is either 10g or 11g.

2Add the following entry, where HOST is the managed host to which the client must connect.

VPX_TNS =

(DESCRIPTION =

(ADDRESS_LIST =

(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=vpxd-Oracle)(PORT=1521))

)

(CONNECT_DATA =

(SERVICE_NAME = ORCL)

)

Conﬁgure an Oracle ODBC Connection

After you create and configure an Oracle database and user for vCenter Server, you must create a 64-bit

DSN on the machine on which you plan to install vCenter Server. During the vCenter Server installation,

you use the DSN to establish a connection between vCenter Server and the database.

Prerequisites

Install the Oracle Client 11.2.0.3 p16656151 (Patch 19) or later, 11.2.0.4, 12.1.0.1.12 or later, or 12.1.0.2.

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Procedure

1On the machine on which you plan to install vCenter Server, select Start > Administrative Tools >

Data Sources (ODBC).

2On the System DSN tab, modify an existing or create a new Oracle ODBC connection.

nTo modify an existing Oracle ODBC connection, select the connection from the System Data

Source list and click Configure.

nTo create an Oracle ODBC connection, click Add, select the Oracle client, and click Finish.

3In the Data Source Name text box, enter an ODBC data source name (DSN).

For example, VMware vCenter Server.

4(Optional) In the Description text box, enter an ODBC DSN description.

5In the TNS Service Name text box, enter the net service name for the database to which you want to

connect.

For example, VPX_TNS.

This is the net service name that you previously configured in the tnsnames.ora file that is located in

the NETWORK\ADMIN folder in the Oracle database installation location.

6In the User ID text box, enter the database user name for vCenter Server.

For example, VPXADMIN.

7Click Test Connection.

8In the Password text box, enter the password of the database user and click OK.

If you configured the DNS correctly, the Connection successful message appears.

9Click OK.

Database Permission Requirements for vCenter Server

vCenter Server requires a database. If you decide to use an external Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server

database, when you create the database, you must grant certain permissions to the database user.

Table 3‑6. Microsoft SQL Database Permissions for vCenter Server

Permission Description

GRANT ALTER ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE Mandatory when you work with SQL Server custom schema.

GRANT REFERENCES ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

Mandatory when you work with SQL Server custom schema.

GRANT INSERT ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

Mandatory when you work with SQL Server custom schema.

GRANT CREATE TABLE TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE Necessary for creating a table.

GRANT CREATE VIEW TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE Necessary for creating a view.

GRANT CREATE PROCEDURE TO VC_ADMIN_ROLE Necessary for creating a stored procedure.

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Table 3‑6. Microsoft SQL Database Permissions for vCenter Server (Continued)

Permission Description

GRANT SELECT ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO VC_USER_ROLE Permissions that let you run SELECT, INSERT, DELETE,

UPDATE operations on tables which are part of the VMW

schema.

GRANT INSERT ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT DELETE ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT UPDATE ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO VC_USER_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON SCHEMA :: [VMW] TO

VC_USER_ROLE

Necessary for running a stored procedure in the db schema.

GRANT SELECT ON msdb.dbo.syscategories TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

Necessary for deploying SQL Server jobs.

These permissions are mandatory only during installation and

upgrade and not required after deployment.

GRANT SELECT ON msdb.dbo.sysjobsteps

TOVC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT SELECT ON msdb.dbo.sysjobs TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_job TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_delete_job TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_update_job TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobschedule TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_category TO

VC_ADMIN_ROLE

GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO [vpxuser] Provides access to SQL Server DMV views and sp_lock

execution.

GRANT VIEW ANY DEFINITION TO [vpxuser] Necessary for providing the user with the privileges to see

metadata for SQL Server objects.

Table 3‑7. Oracle Database Permissions for vCenter Server

Permission Description

GRANT CONNECT TO VPXADMIN Necessary for connecting to the Oracle database.

GRANT RESOURCE TO VPXADMIN Necessary for creating a trigger, sequence, type, procedure, and

so on.

By default, the RESOURCE role has the CREATE

PROCEDURE, CREATE TABLE, and CREATE SEQUENCE

privileges assigned. If the RESOURCE role lacks these

privileges, grant them to the vCenter Server database user.

GRANT CREATE VIEW TO VPXADMIN Necessary for creating a view.

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Table 3‑7. Oracle Database Permissions for vCenter Server (Continued)

Permission Description

GRANT CREATE SEQUENCE TO VPXADMIN Necessary for creating a sequence.

GRANT CREATE TABLE TO VPXADMIN Necessary for creating a table.

GRANT CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW TO VPXADMIN Necessary for creating a materialized view.

GRANT EXECUTE ON dbms_lock TO VPXADMIN Necessary for guaranteeing that the vCenter Server database is

used by a single vCenter Server instance.

GRANT EXECUTE ON dbms_job TO VPXADMIN Necessary during installation or upgrade for scheduling and

managing the SQL jobs.

This permission is not required after deployment.

GRANT SELECT ON dba_lock TO VPXADMIN Necessary for determining existing locks on the vCenter Server

database.

GRANT SELECT ON dba_tablespaces TO VPXADMIN Necessary during upgrade for determining the required disk

space.

This permission is not required after deployment.

GRANT SELECT ON dba_temp_files TO VPXADMIN Necessary during upgrade for determining the required disk

space.

This permission is not required after deployment.

GRANT SELECT ON dba_data_files TO VPXADMIN Necessary for monitoring the free space while vCenter Server is

working.

GRANT SELECT ON v_$session TO VPXADMIN View used to determine existing locks on the vCenter Server

database.

GRANT UNLIMITED TABLESPACE TO VPXADMIN Necessary for granting unlimited tablespace permissions to the

vCenter Server database user.

GRANT SELECT ON v_$system_event TO VPXADMIN Necessary for checking log file switches.

GRANT SELECT ON v_$sysmetric_history TO VPXADMIN Necessary for checking the CPU utilization.

GRANT SELECT ON v_$sysstat TO VPXADMIN Necessary for determining the Buffer Cache Hit Ratio.

GRANT SELECT ON dba_data_files TO VPXADMIN Necessary for determining the tablespace utilization.

GRANT SELECT ON v_$loghist TO VPXADMIN Necessary for checking the checkpoint frequency.

The privileges on the master database are used to monitor the vCenter Server database. so that, for

example, if a certain threshold is reached, you can see an alert.

Verify That vCenter Server Can Communicate with the Local Database

If your database is on the same machine on which vCenter Server is to be installed, and you changed the

machine name, verify the configuration. Make sure that the vCenter Server DSN is configured to

communicate with the new name of the machine.

Changing the vCenter Server computer name impacts database communication if the database server is

on the same computer with vCenter Server. If you changed the machine name, you can verify that

communication remains intact.

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If your database is remote, you can skip this procedure. The name change has no effect on

communication with remote databases.

After you rename the server, verify with your database administrator or the database vendor that all

components of the database are working.

Prerequisites

nMake sure that the database server is running.

nMake sure that the vCenter Server computer name is updated in the domain name service (DNS).

Procedure

1Update the data source information, as needed.

2To test this condition, ping the computer name.

For example, if the computer name is host-1.company.com, run the following command at the

Windows command prompt:

ping host-1.company.com

If you can ping the computer name, the name is updated in DNS.

vCenter Server communication is confirmed. You can continue to prepare other components of your

environment.

Maintaining a vCenter Server Database

After your vCenter Server database instance and vCenter Server are installed and operational, perform

standard database maintenance processes.

The standard database maintenance processes include the following:

nMonitoring the growth of the log file and compacting the database log file, as needed.

nScheduling regular backups of the database.

nBacking up the database before any vCenter Server upgrade.

See your database vendor's documentation for specific maintenance procedures and support.

Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network

Verify that all components on the vSphere network have their clocks synchronized. If the clocks on the

machines in your vSphere network are not synchronized, SSL certificates, which are time-sensitive, might

not be recognized as valid in communications between network machines.

Unsynchronized clocks can result in authentication problems, which can cause the installation to fail or

prevent the vCenter Server Appliance vpxd service from starting.

Verify that any Windows host machine on which vCenter Server runs is synchronized with the Network

Time Server (NTP) server. See the Knowledge Base article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1318.

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To synchronize ESXi clocks with an NTP server, you can use the VMware Host Client. For information

about editing the time configuration of an ESXi host, see vSphere Single Host Management.

Using a User Account for Running vCenter Server

You can use the Microsoft Windows built-in system account or a user account to run vCenter Server. With

a user account, you can enable Windows authentication for SQL Server, and it provides more security.

The user account must be an administrator on the local machine. In the installation wizard, you specify

the account name as DomainName\Username. You must configure the SQL Server database to allow the

domain account access to SQL Server.

The Microsoft Windows built-in system account has more permissions and rights on the server than the

vCenter Server system needs, which can contribute to security problems.

Important If the vCenter Server service is running under the Microsoft Windows built-in system account,

when using Microsoft SQL Server, vCenter Server supports only DSNs with SQL Server authentication.

For SQL Server DSNs configured with Windows authentication, use the same user account for the

VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices service and the DSN user.

If you do not plan to use Microsoft Windows authentication for SQL Server or you are using an Oracle

database, you might still want to set up a local user account for the vCenter Server system. The only

requirement is that the user account is an administrator on the local machine and the account must be

granted the Log on as a service privilege.

Note Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server services are not standalone services under Windows

SCM, instead they run as child processes of the VMware Service Lifecycle Manager service.

Installing vCenter Server on IPv6 Machines

Starting with vSphere 6.5, vCenter Server supports mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environments.

You can connect vCenter Server with an IPv4 address to vCenter Server with an IPv6 address. When you

install vCenter Server with an IPv6 address, use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or host name of

the machine on which you install vCenter Server. When you install vCenter Server with an IPv4 address,

the best practice is to use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or host name of the machine on which

you install vCenter Server, because the IP address can change if assigned by DHCP.

Running the vCenter Server Installer from a Network Drive

You can run the vCenter Server installer from a network drive, but you cannot install the software on a

network drive.

In Windows, you can run the installers from the network drive and install the software on the local

machine.

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Required Information for Installing vCenter Server or

Platform Services Controller on Windows

When you install vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller,

Platform Services Controller, or vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller, the wizard

prompts you for the installation information. It is a best practice to keep a record of the values that you

entered in case you must reinstall the product.

You can use this worksheet to record the information that you need for the installation of vCenter Server

with an embedded Platform Services Controller, Platform Services Controller, or vCenter Server with an

external Platform Services Controller.

Table 3‑8. Required Information for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller

on Windows

Required for Required Information Default Your Entry

All deployment types System name of the local system

A system name to use for managing the local system. The

system name must be an FQDN. If a DNS is not available,

provide a static IP address.

nvCenter Server with an

embedded

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller as the first

instance in a new domain

Name for the new vCenter Single Sign-On domain vsphere.loc

User name administrato

You cannot change

the default user name

during installation.

Password for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator

account

The password must be at least 8 characters, but no more

than 20 characters in length.

The password must conform to the following requirements:

nMust contain at least one uppercase letter.

nMust contain at least one lowercase letter.

nMust contain at least one number.

nMust contain at least one special character, such as

ampersand (&), hash key (#), and percent sign (%).

Site name

A name for the vCenter Single Sign-On site.

Default-

First-Site

nvCenter Server with an

external

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller as a

subsequent instance in

an existing domain

FQDN or IP address of the Platform Services Controller

instance that you want to join

You must join a Platform Services Controller instance of

the same version.

HTTPS port of the Platform Services Controller instance 443

Password of the vCenter Single Sign On administrator user

for the domain

vCenter Single Sign-On site name

You can join an existing site or create a new site.

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Table 3‑8. Required Information for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller

on Windows (Continued)

Required for Required Information Default Your Entry

nvCenter Server with an

embedded

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server with an

external

Platform Services

Controller

vCenter Server service account information

Can be the Windows local system account or a user

service account.

Note Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server

services run as child processes of the VMware Service

Lifecycle Manager service.

Windows

local system

account

Account user name

Only if you use a user service account

Account password

Only if you use a user service account

nvCenter Server with an

embedded

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server with an

external

Platform Services

Controller

vCenter Server database

Can be the embedded VMware Postgres database or an

existing external database

embedded

Postgres

database

Data source name (DSN)

Only if you use an existing external database. Leading and

trailing spaces are not supported. Remove spaces from the

beginning or end of the DSN.

Database user name

Only if you use an existing external database. Non-ASCII

characters are not supported.

Database password

Only if you use an existing external database.

All deployment types HTTP port 80

HTTPS port 443

Syslog Service port 514

Syslog Service TLS port 1514

nvCenter Server with an

embedded

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller

Secure Token Service port 7444

nvCenter Server with an

embedded

Platform Services

Controller

nvCenter Server with an

external

Platform Services

Controller

Auto Deploy Management port 6502

Auto Deploy Service port 6501

ESXi Dump Collector port 6500

ESXi Heartbeat port 902

vSphere Web Client port 9443

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Table 3‑8. Required Information for Installing vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller

on Windows (Continued)

Required for Required Information Default Your Entry

All deployment types Destination folder

nThe folder in which to install vCenter Server or

Platform Services Controller

nThe folder in which to store data for vCenter Server or

Platform Services Controller

The installation paths cannot contain non-ASCII

characters, commas (,), periods (.), exclamation points (!),

pound signs (#), at signs (@), or percentage signs (%).

nThe

default

installati

folder is

C:\Pro

gram

File

s\VMwa

re.

nThe

default

folder

for data

storage

C:\Pro

gramDa

ta\VMw

are.

nvCenter Server with an

embedded

Platform Services

Controller

nPlatform Services

Controller

Join or do not participate in the VMware Customer

Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)

For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring

Customer Experience Improvement Program section in

vCenter Server and Host Management.

Join the

CEIP

Installing vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller

on Windows

You can install vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller,

Platform Services Controller, or vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller on a

Windows virtual or physical machine.

You download the vCenter Server installer ISO file, mount it to the Windows host machine on which you

want to perform the installation, start the installation wizard, and provide the inputs that required for the

installation and setup.

Before installing vCenter Server that uses an external database, you must prepare your database. See

Preparing vCenter Server Databases for Install.

Important For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must install the

replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful deployment of all

Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent installations of multiple

vCenter Server instances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

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Install vCenter Server with an Embedded

Platform Services Controller

You can deploy vCenter Server, the vCenter Server components, and the Platform Services Controller on

one virtual machine or physical server.

After you deploy vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller, you can reconfigure

your topology and switch to vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller. This is a one-

way process after which you cannot switch back to vCenter Server with an embedded

Platform Services Controller. You can repoint the vCenter Server instance only to an external

Platform Services Controller that is configured to replicate the infrastructure data within the same domain.

Figure 3‑1. vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller

Platform Services

Controller

Virtual Machine or Physical Server

vCenter Server

Prerequisites

nVerify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See vCenter

Server for Windows Requirements.

nDownload the vCenter Server Installer for Windows.

nIf you want to use the vSphere Web Client on the host machine on which you install vCenter Server,

verify that Adobe Flash Player version 11.9 or later is installed on the system.

Procedure

1In the software installer directory, double-click the autorun.exe file to start the installer.

2Select vCenter Server for Windows and click Install.

3Follow the prompts of the installation wizard to review the welcome page and accept the license

agreement.

4Select vCenter Server and Embedded Platform Services Controller, and click Next.

5Enter the system network name, preferably an FQDN, and click Next.

You can also enter an IP address. If you enter an IP address, provide a static IP address.

Important Make sure the FQDN or IP address that you provide does not change. The system name

cannot be changed after deployment. If the system name changes, you must uninstall vCenter Server

and install it again.

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6Set up the new vCenter Single Sign-On domain and click Next.

a Enter the domain name, for example vsphere.local.

b Set the password for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.

This is the password for the user administrator@your_domain_name. After installation, you can

7Select the vCenter Server service account and click Next.

Note Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server services are not standalone services under

Windows SCM, instead they run as child processes of the VMware Service Lifecycle Manager

service.

Option Description

Use Windows Local System Account The vCenter Server service runs in the Windows Local System account.

This option prevents you from connecting to an external database by using

Windows integrated authentication.

Specify a user service account The vCenter Server service runs in an administrative user account with a user

name and password that you provide.

Important The user credentials that you provide must be of a user who is in the

local administrator group and who has the Log on as a service privilege.

8Select the type of database that you want to use and click Next.

Option Description

Use an embedded database

(PostgreSQL)

vCenter Server uses the embedded PostgreSQL database. This database is

suitable for small scale deployments.

Use an external database vCenter Server uses an existing external database.

a Select your database from the list of available DSNs.

b Type the user name and the password for the DSN.

If your database uses Windows NT authentication, the user name and password

text boxes are disabled.

9For each component, accept the default port numbers, or if another service is using the defaults,

enter alternative ports, and click Next.

Make sure that ports 80 and 443 are free and dedicated, so that vCenter Single Sign-On can use

these ports. Otherwise, use custom ports during installation.

10 (Optional) Change the default destination folders and click Next.

Important Do not use folders that end with an exclamation mark (!).

11 Review the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) page and choose if you

want to join the program.

For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program

section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

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12 Click Next.

13 Review the summary of the installation settings and click Install to start the installation.

14 (Optional) After the installation finishes, click Launch vSphere Web Client to start the vSphere Web

Client and log in to vCenter Server.

15 Click Finish to close the installer.

vCenter Server, the vCenter Server components, and the Platform Services Controller are installed.

Install a Platform Services Controller on Windows

Before installing vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller, you install a

Platform Services Controller. The Platform Services Controller contains the common services, such as

vCenter Single Sign-On and the License service, which can be shared across several vCenter Server

instances.

You can install many Platform Services Controllers of the same version and join them as replicating

partners in the same vCenter Single Sign-On domain. Concurrent installations of replicating

Platform Services Controllers are not supported. You must install the Platform Services Controllers in the

domain in a sequence.

Important If you want to replace the VMCA-signed certificate with a CA-signed certificate, install the

Platform Services Controller first, and then include VMCA in the certificate chain and generate new

certificates from VMCA that are signed by the whole chain. You can then install vCenter Server. For

information about managing vCenter Server certificates, see Platform Services Controller Administration.

Prerequisites

nVerify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See vCenter

Server for Windows Requirements.

nDownload the vCenter Server Installer for Windows.

Procedure

1In the software installer directory, double-click the autorun.exe file to start the installer.

2Select vCenter Server for Windows and click Install.

3Follow the prompts of the installation wizard to review the welcome page and accept the license

agreement.

4Select Platform Services Controller and click Next.

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5Enter the system name, preferably an FQDN, and click Next.

You can also enter an IP address. If you enter an IP address, provide a static IP address.

Important When you provide an FQDN or an IP address as the system name of the

Platform Services Controller, make sure that the FQDN or IP address does not change. If the FQDN

or IP address of the host machine changes, you have to reinstall the Platform Services Controller and

the vCenter Server instances registered with it. The FQDN or IP address of the

Platform Services Controller is used to generate an SSL certificate for the

Platform Services Controller host machine.

6Create a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain or join an existing domain.

Option Description

Create a new Single Sign-On domain Creates a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

a Enter the domain name, for example vsphere.local.

b Set the password for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.

This is the password for the user administrator@your_domain_name.

c Enter the site name for vCenter Single Sign-On.

The site name is important if you are using vCenter Single Sign-On in multiple

locations. Choose your own name for the vCenter Single Sign-On site. You

cannot change the name after installation.

The supported characters are alphanumeric characters and dash (-).

d Confirm the administrator password, and click Next.

Join an existing vCenter Single Sign-

On domain

Joins a new vCenter Single Sign-On server to a vCenter Single Sign-On domain

in an existing Platform Services Controller. You must provide the information

about the vCenter Single Sign-On server to which you join the new vCenter

Single Sign-On server.

a Enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the

Platform Services Controller that contains the vCenter Single Sign-On server

to join.

b Enter the HTTPS port to use for communication with the

Platform Services Controller.

c Enter the domain name for the vCenter Single Sign-On you are joining, for

example vsphere.local.

d Enter the password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.

e Click Next.

7Click Next.

8For each component, accept the default port numbers, or if another service is using the defaults,

enter alternative ports, and click Next.

Make sure that ports 80 and 443 are free and dedicated, so that vCenter Single Sign-On can use

these ports. Otherwise, use custom ports during installation.

9(Optional) Change the default destination folders and click Next.

Important Do not use folders that end with an exclamation mark (!).

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10 Review the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) page and choose if you

want to join the program.

For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program

section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

11 Review the summary of the installation settings and click Install to start the installation.

12 After the installation completes, click Finish to close the i nstaller.

The Platform Services Controller is installed.

What to do next

Install vCenter Server on another Windows virtual machine or physical server and register vCenter Server

and the vCenter Server components to the Platform Services Controller.

Install vCenter Server with an External

Platform Services Controller on Windows

After you install a Platform Services Controller on a Windows host machine, or deploy a

Platform Services Controller appliance, you can install vCenter Server and the vCenter Server

components and connect the vCenter Server instance to the deployed Platform Services Controller.

Prerequisites

nVerify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See vCenter

Server for Windows Requirements.

nDownload the vCenter Server Installer for Windows.

nIf you want to use the vSphere Web Client on the host machine on which you install vCenter Server,

verify that Adobe Flash Player version 11.9 or later is installed on the system.

Procedure

1In the software installer directory, double-click the autorun.exe file to start the installer.

2Select vCenter Server for Windows and click Install.

3Follow the prompts of the installation wizard to review the welcome page and accept the license

agreement.

4Select vCenter Server and click Next.

5Enter the system network name, preferably a static IP address, and click Next.

Important The name that you type is encoded in the SSL certificate of the system. The components

communicate with each other by using this name. The system name must be either a static IP

address or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). Make sure that the system name does not change.

You cannot change the system name after the installation completes.

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6Provide the system name of the Platform Services Controller that you already installed or deployed,

the HTTPS port to use for communication with the vCenter Single Sign-On server, as well as the

vCenter Single Sign-On password, and click Next.

Important Make sure that you use either the IP address or the FQDN that you provided during the

installation of the Platform Services Controller. If you provided the FQDN as a system name of the

Platform Services Controller, you cannot use an IP address, and the reverse. When a service from

vCenter Server connects to a service running in the Platform Services Controller, the certificate is

verified. If the IP address or FQDN changes, the verification fails and vCenter Server cannot connect

to the Platform Services Controller.

7Approve the certificate provided by the remote machine.

8Select the vCenter Server service account and click Next.

Note Starting with vSphere 6.5, the vCenter Server services are not standalone services under

Windows SCM, instead they run as child processes of the VMware Service Lifecycle Manager

service.

Option Description

Use Windows Local System Account The vCenter Server service runs in the Windows Local System account.

This option prevents you from connecting to an external database by using

Windows integrated authentication.

Specify a user service account The vCenter Server service runs in an administrative user account with a user

name and password that you provide.

Important The user credentials that you provide must be of a user who is in the

local administrator group and who has the Log on as a service privilege.

9Select the type of database that you want to use and click Next.

Option Description

Use an embedded database

(PostgreSQL)

vCenter Server uses the embedded PostgreSQL database. This database is

suitable for small scale deployments.

Use an external database vCenter Server uses an existing external database.

a Select your database from the list of available DSNs.

b Type the user name and the password for the DSN.

If your database uses Windows NT authentication, the user name and password

text boxes are disabled.

10 For each component, accept the default port numbers, or if another service is using the defaults,

enter alternative ports, and click Next.

11 (Optional) Change the default destination folders and click Next.

Important Do not use folders that end with an exclamation mark (!).

12 Review the summary of the installation settings and click Install to start the installation.

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13 (Optional) After the installation finishes, click Launch vSphere Web Client to start the vSphere Web

Client and log in to vCenter Server.

14 Click Finish to close the installer.

vCenter Server is installed in evaluation mode. You can activate vCenter Server by using the

vSphere Web Client. For information about activating vCenter Server, see vCenter Server and Host

Management.

Installing vCenter Server in an Environment with Multiple NICs

If you want to install vCenter Server with an externalPlatform Services Controller in an environment with

multiple NICs, you must keep a record of the IP addresses or FQDNs that you use as system network

names.

For example, if you want to install a Platform Services Controller on one virtual machine and

vCenter Server on another virtual machine and each virtual machine has two NICs, you can use the

following workflow:

1 Install a Platform Services Controller on one of the virtual machines and use one of its IP addresses

or FQDNs as a system network name.

2 On the other virtual machine, start the installation of vCenter Server and use one of its IP addresses

or FQDNs as a system network name.

3 When prompted to provide the system network name of the Platform Services Controller, enter the IP

address or FQDN that you entered during the installation of the Platform Services Controller.

If you enter the other IP address or FQDN of the Platform Services Controller, you receive an error

message.

4 After the installation completes, you can log in to the vSphere Web Client by using either of the NIC

IP addresses or FQDNs of vCenter Server.

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File-Based Backup and Restore

of vCenter Server Appliance 4

The vCenter Server Appliance supports a file-based backup and restore mechanism that helps you to

recover your environment after failures.

In vSphere 6.7, you can use the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface to create a file-based

backup of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance. After you create the

backup, you can restore it by using the GUI installer of the appliance.

You use the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface to perform a file-based backup of the

vCenter Server core configuration, inventory, and historical data of your choice. The backed-up data is

streamed over FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP to a remote system. The backup is not stored on the

vCenter Server Appliance.

You can perform a file-based restore only for a vCenter Server Appliance that you have previously backed

up by using the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface. You can perform such restore

operation by using the GUI installer of the vCenter Server Appliance. The process consists of deploying a

new vCenter Server Appliance and copying the data from the file-based backup to the new appliance.

You can also perform a restore operation by deploying a new vCenter Server Appliance and using the

vCenter Server Appliance management interface to copy the data from the file-based backup to the new

appliance.

Important If you back up a vCenter Server Appliance High Availability cluster, the backup operation only

backs up the primary vCenter Server instance. Before restoring a vCenter Server Appliance High

Availability cluster, you must power off the active, passive, and witness nodes. The restore operation

restores the vCenter Server in non-vCenter Server High Availability mode. You must reconstruct the

cluster after the restore operation completes successfully.

This chapter includes the following topics:

nConsiderations and Limitations for File-Based Backup and Restore

nSchedule a File-Based Backup

nManually Back up a vCenter Server Appliance by Using the vCenter Server Appliance Management

Interface

nRestore a vCenter Server Appliance from a File-Based Backup

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Considerations and Limitations for File-Based Backup and

Restore

When you backup or restore a vCenter Server environment, take into account these considerations and

limitation.

Protocols

The following considerations apply to file-based backup and restore protocols:

nFTP and HTTP are not secure protocols

nBackup servers must support minimum of 10 simultaneous connections for each

vCenter Server Appliance

nYou must have write permissions for upload and read permissions for download

nOnly explicit mode is supported for FTPS

nIf you use HTTP or HTTPS, you must enable WebDAV on the backup Web server

nYou can use only FTP, FTPS, HTTP, or HTTPS to transmit data through an HTTP proxy server

nYou can use IPv4 and IPv6 URLs in file-based backup and restore of a vCenter Server Appliance.

Mixed mode of IP versions between the backup server and the vCenter Server Appliance is

unsupported.

nIf you use SCP protocol, you must use the Linux backup server

Conﬁguration

After a restore, the following configurations revert to the state when the backup was taken.

nVirtual machine resource settings

nResource pool hierarchy and setting

nCluster-host membership

nDRS configuration and rules

Storage DRS

If the configuration changes, the following might change after a restore.

nDatastore Cluster configuration

nDatastore Cluster membership

nDatastore I/O Resource Management (Storage I/O Control) settings

nDatastore-Datacenter membership

nHost-Datastore membership

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Distributed Power Management

If you put a host into standby mode after a backup, the vCenter Server might force the host to exit

standby mode when you restore to the backup.

Distributed Virtual Switch

If you use a distributed virtual switch, you are advised to export separately the distributed virtual switch

configuration before you restore to a backup. You can import the configuration after the restore. If you

omit this consideration, you may lose the changes made to a distributed virtual switch after the backup.

For detailed steps, see the VMware knowledge base article at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034602.

Content Libraries

If you delete libraries or items after a backup, you cannot access or use these libraries or items after the

restore. You can only delete such libraries or items. A warning message notifies you that there are

missing files or folders in the storage backup.

If you create new items or item files after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the

new items or files after the restore operation. A warning notifies you that extra folders or files were found

on the storage backup.

If you create new libraries after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the new libraries

after restore. The library content exists on the storage backing, but no warning is displayed. You must

manually clean the new libraries.

Virtual Machine Life Cycle Operations

nRestoring vCenter Server from a backup that was taken during in-flight relocation operations in the

vCenter Server instance.

After you restore vCenter Server, the vCenter Server view of the virtual machines might be out of

sync with the ESXi view of the virtual machines. This is also true if you performed the backup during

in-flight operations on vCenter Server. If virtual machines disappear after you restore vCenter Server,

you can refer to the following cases.

a The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host and is registered with the

destination ESXi host, but it is either an orphan or not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must

manually add the virtual machine to the vCenter Server inventory.

b The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with

the destination ESXi host and it is not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must manually register

the virtual machine to the ESXi host and add the virtual machine back to the vCenter Server

inventory.

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c The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with

the destination ESXi host. In the vCenter Server instance, the missing virtual machine is marked

as orphaned. You must remove the virtual machine from the vCenter Server inventory and add it

again.

nRestoring vCenter Server from a backup that has an out-of-date linked clone virtual machine layout.

If you create a linked clone virtual machine after the backup and you restore vCenter Server from the

old backup, then after the restore, the vCenter Server does not know about the new linked clone

virtual machine until vCenter Server discovers the new linked clone virtual machine. If you remove all

existing virtual machines before the new linked clone virtual machine is discovered, then the removal

of existing virtual machines corrupts the new linked clone due to missing disks. In order to avoid this,

you must wait until all linked clone virtual machines are discovered by the vCenter Server before you

remove virtual machines.

nRestoring vCenter Server from a backup that was taken during virtual machine registration.

If you are registering a virtual machine during the backup and you restore vCenter Server from the old

backup, then after the restore, the virtual machine is marked as orphaned in the vCenter Server

instance. You must manually add the virtual machine to the vCenter Server inventory.

vSphere High Availability

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might cause it to rollback to older version for the vSphere HA

cluster state (HostList, ClusterConfiguration, VM protection state) while the hosts in the cluster have the

latest version for the cluster state. You need to make sure the vSphere HA cluster state stays the same

during restore and backup operations. Otherwise, the following problems might occur.

nIf hosts are added or removed to or from the vSphere HA cluster after backup and before

vCenter Server restore, virtual machines could potentially failover to hosts not being managed by the

vCenter Server but are still part of the HA cluster.

nProtection state for new virtual machines is not updated on the vSphere HA agents on the hosts that

are part of the vSphere HA cluster. As a result, virtual machines are not protected or unprotected.

nNew cluster configuration state is not updated on the vSphere HA agents on the hosts that are part of

the vSphere HA cluster.

vCenter High Availability

Restoring vCenter Server requires vCenter HA to be reconfigured.

Storage Policy Based Management

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup can lead to the following inconsistencies related to storage

policies, storage providers, and virtual machines.

nRegistered storage providers after backup are lost.

nUnregistered storage providers after backup re-appear and might show different provider status.

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nChanges, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policies after backup are lost.

nChanges, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policy components after backup

are lost.

nDefault policy configuration changes for datastores performed after backup are lost.

nChanges in the storage policy association of the virtual machine and its disks, and in their policy

compliance might occur.

Virtual Storage Area Network

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might cause inconsistencies in the vSAN. For information on

how to check vSAN health, see Administering VMware vSAN.

Patching

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might result in missing security patches. You must apply them

again after the restore is complete. For information on patching the vCenter Server Appliance, see

vSphere Upgrade.

Schedule a File-Based Backup

You can schedule file-based backups in vSphere 6.7. You can set up a schedule that is used to perform

periodic backups.

The schedule can be set up with information about the backup location, recurrence, and retention for the

backups.

You can only set up one schedule at a time.

Prerequisites

nYou must have an FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP server up and running with sufficient disk

space to store the backup.

Procedure

1In a Web browser, go to the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface, https://appliance-IP-

address-or-FQDN:5480.

2Log in as root.

3In the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface, click Backup.

4Click Configure to set up a backup schedule.

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5Enter the backup location details.

Option Description

Backup location Enter the backup location, including the protocol to use to connect to your backup

server, the port, the server address, and backup folder to store the backup files.

Use one of the following protocols: FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP.

For FTP, FTPS, HTTP, or HTTPS the path is relative to the home directory

configured for the service. For SCP, the path is absolute to the remote systems

root directory.

Backup server credentials Enter a user name and password of a user with write privileges on the backup

server.

6Set the schedule recurrence and time for the backup.

The recurrence can be set daily, weekly, or you can customize the schedule to run the backup on a

specific day or days of the week. You can specify the time of day to run the backup. The default time

is 11:59pm.

7(Optional) Enter an Encryption Password if you want to encrypt your backup file.

If you select to encrypt the backup data, you must use the encryption password for the restore

procedure.

8Select Retain all backups or enter the number of backups to retain.

The retention information provides the number of backups to retain for a given vCenter Server.

9(Optional) Select Stats, Events, and Tasks to back up additional historical data from the database.

10 Click Create.

The backup schedule information is populated in the Backup page.

The complete and in progress backups are listed under Activity.

What to do next

You can perform an immediate backup with the existing schedule information by selecting Use backup

location and user name from backup schedule from the backup schedule on the Backup Now dialog

box.

Manually Back up a vCenter Server Appliance by Using

the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface

You can use the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface to back up the vCenter Server

instance. You can select whether to include historical data, such as stats, events, and tasks, in the

backup file.

Note The backup operation for a vCenter High Availability cluster, backs up only the active node.

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Prerequisites

nYou must have an FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP server up and running with sufficient disk

space to store the backup.

Procedure

1In a Web browser, go to the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface, https://appliance-IP-

address-or-FQDN:5480.

2Log in as root.

3In the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface, click Backup.

4Click Backup Now.

The Backup Appliance wizard opens.

5(Optional) Select Use backup location and user name from backup schedule to use the

information from a scheduled backup.

6Enter the backup location details.

Option Description

Backup location Enter the backup location, including the protocol to use to connect to your backup

server, the port, the server address, and backup folder to store the backup files.

Use one of the following protocols: FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP.

For FTP, FTPS, HTTP, or HTTPS the path is relative to the home directory

configured for the service. For SCP, the path is absolute to the remote systems

root directory.

Backup server credentials Enter a user name and password of a user with write privileges on the backup

server.

Note Username and password should only contain ASCII characters.

7(Optional) Enter an Encryption Password if you want to encrypt your backup file.

If you select to encrypt the backup data, you must use the encryption password for the restore

procedure.

8(Optional) Select Stats, Events, and Tasks to back up additional historical data from the database.

9(Optional) In the Description text box, enter a description of the backup.

10 Click Start to begin the backup process.

The complete and in progress backups are listed under Activity.

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Restore a vCenter Server Appliance from a File-Based

Backup

You can use the vCenter Server Appliance GUI installer to restore a vCenter Server Appliance to an ESXi

host or a vCenter Server instance. The restore procedure has two stages. The first stage deploys a new

vCenter Server Appliance. The second stage populates the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance

with the data stored in the file-based backup.

Figure 4‑1. vCenter Server Appliance Restore Workﬂow

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Perform a file-based restore of a Platform Services Controller only when the last

Platform Services Controller in the domain fails. If there are other Platform Services Controller instances

in the same vCenter Single Sign-On domain, deploy a new Platform Services Controller instance and join

it to the existing Single Sign-On domain.

Figure 4‑2. Platform Services Controller Appliance Restore Workﬂow

Prerequisites

nVerify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See System

Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance.

nDownload and Mount the vCenter Server Appliance Installer.

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nIf the vCenter Server instance is part of a vCenter High Availability cluster, you must power off the

active, passive, and witness nodes of the cluster before restoring the vCenter Server.

Procedure

1Stage 1 - Deploy a New Appliance

In stage 1 of the restore process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance GUI installer.

2Stage 2 - Transfer Data to the Newly Deployed Appliance

After the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the restore process in which the

data from the backup location is copied to the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance.

Stage 1 - Deploy a New Appliance

In stage 1 of the restore process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the

vCenter Server Appliance GUI installer.

As an alternative to performing the first stage of the restore with the GUI installer, you can deploy the OVA

file of the new vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance by using the

vSphere Web Client or the vSphere Client. After the OVA deployment, you must log in to the appliance

management interface of the newly deployed appliance to proceed with the second stage of the restore

process.

Prerequisites

nDownload and mount the vCenter Server Appliance installer. See Download and Mount the vCenter

Server Appliance Installer.

nIf you plan to restore the vCenter Server Appliance on an ESXi host, verify that the target ESXi host is

not in lockdown or maintenance mode.

nIf you plan to restore the vCenter Server Appliance on a DRS cluster of a vCenter Server inventory,

verify that the cluster contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.

nIf you plan to assign a static IP address to the appliance, verify that you have configured the forward

and reverse DNS records for the IP address.

nIf you are attempting to restore a vCenter Server instance that is still running, power off the backed up

vCenter Server before you start the restore operation.

Procedure

1In the vCenter Server Appliance installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the

subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.

nFor Windows OS, go to the win32 subdirectory, and run the installer.exe file.

nFor Linux OS, go to the lin64 subdirectory, and run the installer file.

nFor Mac OS, go to the mac subdirectory, and run the Installer.app file.

2On the Home page, click Restore.

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3Review the Introduction page to understand the restore process and click Next.

4Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next.

5On the Enter backup details page, enter the details of the backup file that you want to restore, and

click Next.

Option Description

Backup location Enter the server address and backup folder where the backup files are stored.

Specify the protocol to use to retrieve the backup from your backup server. You

can select HTTPS, HTTP, SCP, FTPS, or FTP.

You can also enter the IP address or hostname of the backup server and browse

for the location of the backup folder.

User name Enter the user name of a user with read privileges on the backup server.

Password Enter the password of the user with read privileges on the backup server.

6Review the backup information, and click Next.

7Connect to the ESXi host or vCenter Server on which you want to deploy the

vCenter Server Appliance to use for the restore operation.

Option Steps

You can connect to an

ESXi host on which to

deploy the appliance to

use for the restore

operation.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the ESXi host.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the ESXi host.

3 Enter the user name and password of a user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host,

for example, the root user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target ESXi host, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.

You can connect to a

vCenter Server instance

and browse the inventory

to select an ESXi host or

DRS cluster on which to

deploy the appliance to

use for the restore

operation.

1 Enter the FQDN or IP address of the vCenter Server instance.

2 Enter the HTTPS port of the vCenter Server instance.

3 Enter the user name and password of user with vCenter Single Sign-On administrative

privileges on the vCenter Server instance, for example, the

administrator@your_domain_name user.

4 Click Next.

5 Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is

installed on the target vCenter Server instance, and click Yes to accept the certificate

thumbprint.

6 Select the data center or data center folder that contains the ESXi host or DRS cluster on

which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next.

Note You must select a data center or data center folder that contains at least one ESXi

host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.

7 Select the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click

Next.

8Accept the certificate warning.

9Enter a name for the vCenter Server Appliance, set up the password for the root user, and click Next.

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10 Select the deployment size for the new vCenter Server Appliance depending on the size of your

vSphere inventory.

Deployment Size Option Description

Tiny Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs and 10 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines

Small Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs and 16 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines

Medium Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs and 24 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines

Large Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs and 32 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines

X-Large Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs and 48 GB of memory.

Suitable for environments with up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines

11 Select the storage size for the new vCenter Server Appliance, and click Next.

Important You must consider the storage size of the appliance that you are restoring.

Storage

Size

Option

Description for

Tiny Deployment

Size

Description for

Small Deployment

Size

Description for

Medium

Deployment Size

Description for

Large Deployment

Size

Description for X-

Large Deployment

Size

Default Deploys an

appliance with 300

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 340

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 525

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 740

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1180

GB of storage.

Large Deploys an

appliance with 825

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 870

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1025

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1090

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1230

GB of storage.

X-Large Deploys an

appliance with 1700

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1750

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1905

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 1970

GB of storage.

Deploys an

appliance with 2110

GB of storage.

12 From the list of available datastores, select the location where all the virtual machine configuration

files and virtual disks will be stored and, optionally, enable thin provisioning by selecting Enable Thin

Disk Mode.

13 On the Configure network settings page review the settings populated from the backup file of the

vCenter Server Appliance.

14 (Optional) Edit the network configuration to match the current network environment where the

vCenter Server Appliance is restored.

15 On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the restored

vCenter Server Appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.

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16 Wait for the OVA deployment to finish, and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the restore

process to transfer the data to the newly deployed appliance.

Note If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the vCenter Server Appliance

Management Interface to transfer the data.

The newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance is running on the target server but the data is not copied

from the backup location.

Stage 2 - Transfer Data to the Newly Deployed Appliance

After the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the restore process in which the data

from the backup location is copied to the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance.

Procedure

1Review the introduction to stage 2 of the restore process and click Next.

2Review the backup details and click Next.

3If you are restoring a vCenter Server Appliance that is a vCenter Embedded Linked Mode, you are

asked to provide the Single Sign-On credentials. Enter the Single Sign-On user name and password,

then click Validate and Recover.

4On the Ready to complete page, review the details, click Finish, and click OK to complete stage 2 of

the restore process.

The restore process restarts the vCenter Server Appliance Management Service. You cannot access

the vCenter Server Appliance Management API during the restart.

Important If a restore operation of a vCenter Server Appliance or a Platform Services Controller

appliance VM results with a failure, you must power off and delete the partially restored VM. After that

you can try to restore the VM again.

5(Optional) After the restore process finishes, click the

https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn/vsphere-client to go to the vSphere Web Client and log in

to the vCenter Server instance in the vCenter Server Appliance, or click the

https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn:443 to go to the vCenter Server Appliance Getting Started

page.

6Click Close to exit the wizard.

You are redirected to the vCenter Server Appliance Getting Started page.

7If the backed up vCenter node is part of a vCenter High Availability cluster, the last needs to be

reconfigured after the restore operation completes successfully.

For information about how to perform backup and restore operations, see vSphere Availability.

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Image-Based Backup and

Restore of a vCenter Server

Environment 5

You can use a third-party product that is integrated with VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection

to back up and restore a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server, a vCenter Server Appliance, or a

Platform Services Controller.

You can perform a full image backup of a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server, a

vCenter Server Appliance, or a Platform Services Controller. The virtual machine must use a fully

qualified domain name (FQDN) with correct DNS resolution, or the hostname must be configured to be an

IP address. If the hostname is configured as an IP address, the IP address cannot be changed.

The following backups and recoveries are not supported:

nIncremental backups

nDifferential backups

nIndividual disk backups

nVirtual machines that have snapshots

nVirtual machines configured with Fault Tolerance

VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection is a data protection framework that enables backup

products to perform centralized, efficient, off-host LAN free backup of vSphere virtual machines. For

information about VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection, see the VMware Web site. For

information about the integration of backup products with VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Data

Protection, contact your backup vendor.

This chapter includes the following topics:

nConsiderations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup and Restore

nRestore a vCenter Server Image-based Environment

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Considerations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup

and Restore

When you restore a vCenter Server environment, take into account these considerations and limitations.

Note Restoring a vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller instance with DHCP network

configuration results in changing its IP address. The changed IP address prevents some vCenter Server

services from starting properly. To start all vCenter Server services successfully, after the restore, you

must reconfigure the IP address of the restored vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller instance

to the IP address that the instance was set to when you performed the backup.

Conﬁguration

After a restore, the following configurations revert to the state when the backup was taken.

nVirtual machine resource settings

nResource pool hierarchy and setting

nCluster-host membership

nDRS configuration and rules

Storage DRS

If the configuration changes, the following might change after a restore.

nDatastore Cluster configuration

nDatastore Cluster membership

nDatastore I/O Resource Management (Storage I/O Control) settings

nDatastore-Datacenter membership

nHost-Datastore membership

Distributed Power Management

If you put a host into standby mode after a backup, the vCenter Server might force the host to exit

standby mode when you restore to the backup.

Distributed Virtual Switch

If you use a distributed virtual switch, you are advised to export separately the distributed virtual switch

configuration before you restore to a backup. You can import the configuration after the restore. If you

omit this consideration, you may lose the changes made to a distributed virtual switch after the backup.

For detailed steps, see the VMware knowledge base article at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034602.

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Content Libraries

If you delete libraries or items after a backup, you cannot access or use these libraries or items after the

restore. You can only delete such libraries or items. A warning message notifies you that there are

missing files or folders in the storage backup.

If you create new items or item files after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the

new items or files after the restore operation. A warning notifies you that extra folders or files were found

on the storage backup.

If you create new libraries after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the new libraries

after restore. The library content exists on the storage backing, but no warning is displayed. You must

manually clean the new libraries.

Virtual Machine Life Cycle Operations

nRestoring vCenter Server from a backup that was taken while there are in-flight relocation operations

within the vCenter Server instance.

After you restore vCenter Server, the vCenter Server view of the virtual machines may be out of sync

with the ESXi view of the virtual machines. This is also true if you performed the backup while there

were in-flight operations on vCenter Server. If virtual machines disappear after you restore

vCenter Server, you can refer to the following cases.

a The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host and is registered with the

destination ESXi host, but it is not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must manually add the

virtual machine to the vCenter Server inventory.

b The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with

the destination ESXi host and it is not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must manually register

the virtual machine to the ESXi and add the virtual machine back to the vCenter Server inventory.

c The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with

the destination ESXi host. Within the vCenter Server instance, the missing virtual machine is

marked as orphaned. You must remove the virtual machine from the vCenter Server inventory

and add it again.

nRestoring vCenter Server from a backup that has an out of date linked clone virtual machine layout.

If you create a linked clone virtual machine after the backup and you restore vCenter Server from the

old backup, then after the restore, vCenter Server does not know about the new linked clone virtual

machine until vCenter Server discovers the new linked clone virtual machine. If you remove all

existing virtual machines before the new linked clone virtual machine is discovered, then the removal

of existing virtual machines corrupts the new linked clone due to missing disks. To avoid this

corruption, you must wait until all linked clone virtual machines get discovered by the vCenter Server

before you remove virtual machines.

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vSphere High Availability

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup may cause it to roll back to older version for the vSphere HA

cluster state (HostList, ClusterConfiguration, VM protection state) while the hosts in the cluster have the

latest version for the cluster state. Ensure that the vSphere HA cluster state stays the same during

restore and backup operations. Otherwise, the following potential problems are present.

nIf hosts are added or removed to/from the vSphere HA cluster after backup and before

vCenter Server restore, virtual machines could potentially fail over to hosts not managed by the

vCenter Server but are still part of the HA cluster.

nProtection states for new virtual machines are not updated on the vSphere HA agents on the hosts

which are part of the vSphere HA cluster. As a result, virtual machines are not protected/unprotected.

nNew cluster configuration state is not updated on the vSphere HA agents on the hosts which are part

of the vSphere HA cluster.

vCenter High Availability

Restoring vCenter Server requires vCenter HA to be reconfigured.

Storage Policy Based Management

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup can lead to the following inconsistencies related to storage

policies, storage providers, and virtual machines.

nRegistered storage providers after backup are lost.

nUnregistered storage providers after backup reappear and might show different provider status.

nChanges, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policies after backup are lost.

nChanges, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policy components after backup

are lost.

nDefault policy configuration changes for datastores performed after backup are lost.

nChanges in the storage policy association of the virtual machine and its disks, and in their policy

compliance might occur.

Virtual Storage Area Network

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup may cause inconsistencies in the vSAN. For information how to

check vSAN health, see Administering VMware vSAN.

Patching

Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might result in missing security patches. You must apply them

again after the restore is complete. For information on patching the vCenter Server Appliance, see

vSphere Upgrade.

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Restore a vCenter Server Image-based Environment

You can use a third-party product that is integrated with VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection

to restore a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server, vCenter Server Appliance, or

Platform Services Controller.

You can perform an image-based restore of a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server, a

vCenter Server Appliance, or a Platform Services Controller. The virtual machine must use a fully

qualified domain name (FQDN) with correct DNS resolution, or the host name of the machine must be

configured to be an IP address. If the host name is configured as an IP address, the IP address cannot be

changed.

You can restore a virtual machine to the original location by either overwriting the backed up virtual

machine or by creating a new virtual machine that contains the restored vCenter Server,

vCenter Server Appliance, or Platform Services Controller on the same ESXi host. You can also restore

the virtual machine on a new ESXi host.

You can restore a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server or a Platform Services Controller instance

directly on the ESXi host that is running the third-party appliance when the vCenter Server service

becomes unavailable or when you cannot access the third-party user interface by using the

vSphere Web Client.

Important Restoring virtual machines that have snapshots or that are configured with Fault Tolerance is

unsupported.

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Figure 5‑1. vCenter Server Restore Workﬂow

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Figure 5‑2. Platform Services Controller Restore Workﬂow

Restore a vCenter Server Instance with an Embedded

Platform Services Controller

Your environment might consist of vCenter Server or a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller. You can use a third-party product to restore a vCenter Server environment

with an embedded Platform Services Controller.

Important You can back up and restore only virtual machines that contain vCenter Server,

vCenter Server Appliance, and Platform Services Controller. You cannot back up and restore physical

machines that are running vCenter Server by using a third-party product.

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Procedure

1Restore the vCenter Server virtual machine onto the ESXi host using a third-party solution.

2Log into the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface, https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:

5480.

3Run the reconciliation operation and provide the Single Sign-On credentials.

4If you are restoring the last embedded node in the embedded linked mode deployment, run the

reconciliation operation with the ignore_warnings flag selected.

What to do next

Power on the restored virtual machine that contains the restored vCenter Server instance.

Restoring a vCenter Server Environment with a Single Embedded

Platform Services Controller

Your environment might consist of many vCenter Server instances that are registered with a single

Platform Services Controller. You can use a third party solution to restore a virtual machine that contains

a Platform Services Controller. You can also use the third party solution to restore either virtual machines

that contain vCenter Server instances or vCenter Server Appliance instances that are registered with a

single external Platform Services Controller.

Note If vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller instances fail at the same time, you must first

restore the Platform Services Controller and then the vCenter Server instances.

Restoring a vCenter Server Environment with Multiple

Platform Services Controller Instances

You can use a third party solution to restore an environment in which the vCenter Server instances are

registered with different Platform Services Controller instances, and the infrastructure data is replicated

between the Platform Services Controller instances.

Important You can back up and restore only virtual machines that contain vCenter Server,

vCenter Server Appliance, and Platform Services Controller. You cannot back up and restore physical

machines that are running vCenter Server by using a third-party product.

For a vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller, restore is only allowed if it is the last

node in the cluster. If it is not the last node in the cluster, deploy a new Platform Services Controller node

and join the cluster.

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For the last Platform Services Controller in the cluster, use the third party solution to restore the

vCenter Server virtual machine onto the ESXi host. You do not need to perform reconciliation. After the

restore succeeds, in the node associated with that Platform Services Controller, run the following

commands:

service-control --stop --all

service-control --start --all

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After You Install vCenter Server

or Deploy the

vCenter Server Appliance 6

After you install vCenter Server or deploy the vCenter Server Appliance, consider these postinstallation

options before adding inventory for the vCenter Server to manage.

For information about configuring the vSphere Authentication Proxy service, see vSphere Security.

This chapter includes the following topics:

nLog in to vCenter Server by Using the vSphere Web Client

nInstall the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in

nCollect vCenter Server Log Files

nRepoint vCenter Server to Another External Platform Services Controller in the Same Domain

nRepoint vCenter Server to External Platform Services Controller in a Different Domain

nReconfigure a Standalone vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller to a

vCenter Server with an External Platform Services Controller

In vSphere 6.0 and later, the vSphere Web Client is installed as part of the vCenter Server on Windows or

the vCenter Server Appliance deployment. This way, the vSphere Web Client always points to the same

vCenter Single Sign-On instance.

Procedure

1Open a Web browser and enter the URL for the vSphere Web Client:

https://vcenter_server_ip_address_or_fqdn/vsphere-client.

2Enter the credentials of a user who has permissions on vCenter Server, and click Login.

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3If a warning message about an untrusted SSL certificate appears, select the appropriate action based

on your security policy.

Option Action

Ignore the security warning for this

Click Ignore.

Ignore the security warning for this

certificate so that the warning does not

appear again.

Select Install this certificate and do not display any security warnings for

this server and click Ignore.

Select this option only if using the default certificate does not present a security

problem in your environment.

Cancel and install a signed certificate

before proceeding.

Click Cancel and ensure that a signed certificate is installed on the vCenter

Server system before you attempt to connect again.

The vSphere Web Client connects to all the vCenter Server systems on which the specified user has

permissions, allowing you to view and manage your inventory.

Install the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in

The VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in provides Integrated Windows Authentication and

Windows-based smart card functionality.

In the vSphere 6.5 release, the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in replaced the Client Integration

Plug-in from vSphere 6.0 releases and earlier. The Enhanced Authentication Plug-in provides Integrated

Windows Authentication and Windows-based smart card functionality. These are the only two features

carried over from the previous Client Integration Plug-in. The Enhanced Authentication Plug-in can

function seamlessly if you already have the Client Integration Plug-in installed on your system from

vSphere 6.0 or earlier. There are no conflicts if both plug-ins are installed.

Watch the video "vSphere Web Client after the Client Integration Plug-in Removal" for more information

about the workflow changes to the vSphere Client:

vSphere Web Client after the Client Integration Plug-in Removal

(http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid2296383276001?

bctid=ref:video_web_client_after_cip_removal)

Install the plug-in only once to enable all the functionality the plug-in delivers.

If you install the plug-in from an Internet Explorer browser, you must first disable Protected Mode and

enable pop-up windows on your Web browser. Internet Explorer identifies the plug-in as being on the

Internet instead of on the local intranet. In such cases, the plug-in is not installed correctly because

Protected Mode is enabled for the Internet.

For information about supported browsers and operating systems, see the vCenter Server Installation and

Setup documentation.

Prerequisites

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, disable Protected Mode.

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Procedure

1Open a Web browser and type the URL for the vSphere Web Client.

2At the bottom of the vSphere Web Client login page, click Download Enhanced Authentication

Plug-in.

3If the browser blocks the installation either by issuing certificate errors or by running a pop-up blocker,

follow the Help instructions for your browser to resolve the problem.

4Save the plug-in to your computer, and run the executable.

5Step through the installation wizard for both the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in and the

VMware Plug-in Service which are run in succession.

6When the installations are complete, refresh your browser.

7On the External Protocol Request dialog box, click Launch Application to run the Enhanced

Authentication Plug-in.

The link to download the plug-in disappears from the login page.

Collect vCenter Server Log Files

After you install vCenter Server, you can collect the vCenter Server log files for diagnosing and

troubleshooting purposes.

Note This procedure provides information about how to collect the log files for a Windows installation of

vCenter Server. For information about exporting a support bundle and browsing the log files in the

vCenter Server Appliance, see vCenter Server Appliance Configuration.

Procedure

1Log in as an administrator on the Windows machine where vCenter Server is installed.

2Navigate to Start > Programs > VMware > Generate vCenter Server log bundle to generate the

log bundle.

You can generate vCenter Server log bundles even if you are unable to connect to the vCenter Server

by using the vSphere Web Client

The log files for the vCenter Server system are generated and saved in a .tgz archive on your desktop.

Repoint vCenter Server to Another External

Platform Services Controller in the Same Domain

Joining external Platform Services Controller instances in the same vCenter Single Sign-On domain,

ensures high availability of your system.

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If an external Platform Services Controller stops responding or if you want to distribute the load of an

external Platform Services Controller, you can repoint the vCenter Server instances to another

Platform Services Controller in the same domain and site.

nYou can repoint the vCenter Server instance to an existing functional Platform Services Controller

instance with free load capacity in the same domain and site.

nYou can install or deploy a new Platform Services Controller instance in the same domain and site to

which to repoint the vCenter Server instance.

Prerequisites

nIf the old Platform Services Controller instance has stopped responding, remove the node and clean

up the stale vmdir data by running the cmsso-util unregister command. For information about

decommissioning a Platform Services Controller instance, see https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2106736.

nVerify that the old and the new Platform Services Controller instances are in the same vCenter Single

Sign-On domain and site by running the vdcrepadmin -f showservers command. For information

about using the command, see https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2127057.

nIf you want to repoint a vCenter Server Appliance that is configured in a vCenter HA cluster, remove

the vCenter HA configuration. For information about removing a vCenter HA configuration, see

vSphere Availability.

Procedure

1Log in to the vCenter Server instance.

nFor a vCenter Server Appliance, log in to the vCenter Server Appliance shell as root.

nFor a vCenter Server instance on Windows, log in as an administrator to the vCenter Server

virtual machine or physical server.

2If the vCenter Server instance runs on Windows, in the Windows command prompt, navigate to

C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin.

3Run the cmsso-util repoint command.

cmsso-util repoint --repoint-psc psc_fqdn_or_static_ip [--dc-port port_number]

where the square brackets [ ] enclose the command options.

Here, psc_fqdn_or_static_ip is the system name used to identify the Platform Services Controller.

This system name must be an FQDN or a static IP address.

Note The FQDN value is case-sensitive.

Use the --dc-port port_number option if the Platform Services Controller runs on a custom

HTTPS port. The default value of the HTTPS port is 443.

4Log in to the vCenter Server instance by using the vSphere Web Client to verify that the

vCenter Server instance is running and can be managed.

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The vCenter Server instance is registered with the new Platform Services Controller.

What to do next

If you repointed a vCenter Server Appliance that was configured in a vCenter HA cluster, you can

reconfigure the vCenter HA cluster. For information about configuring vCenter HA, see vSphere

Availability.

Repoint vCenter Server to External Platform Services

Controller in a Dierent Domain

You can move one vCenter Server to a Platform Services Controller in another vSphere domain. You can

also move all vCenter Servers in one vSphere domain one at a time to another domain, which provides a

way to perform domain consolidation. Services such as tagging, and licensing, are migrated to the new

Platform Services Controller.

In addition to consolidating vSphere domains, you can also split an existing domain. The following use

cases are supported:

nYou can move one or more vCenter Server instances that point to separate external

Platform Services Controller to point to a new Platform Services Controller in a different domain.

nYou can move one or more vCenter Server instances that point to one external

Platform Services Controller to point to different Platform Services Controller in a different domain.

nYou can move a vCenter Server that is part of an embedded Platform Services Controller to an

external Platform Services Controller in a different domain. You must first reconfigure the node to an

external Platform Services Controller node before repointing to a Platform Services Controller in a

different domain.

Prerequisites

nCross domain repointing is only supported with Platform Services Controller 6.7 and vCenter Server

6.7.

nEach vCenter Server and vCenter Server node must be in a healthy state.

nTo ensure no loss of data, take a snapshot or backup each node before proceeding with repointing

the vCenter Server or Platform Services Controller.

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Procedure

1(Optional) Run the pre-check mode command. The pre-check mode fetches the tagging (tags and

categories) and authorization (roles and privileges) data from the Platform Services Controller.

Conflicts can be checked for tagging and authorization data. Pre-check does not migrate any data,

but checks the conflicts and writes them to a JSON file. For example, run the pre-check with the

following CLI:

cmsso-util domain-repoint --mode pre-check --src-psc-admin source_PSC_admin_userid --dest-psc-fqdn

target_PSC_FQDN --dest-psc-admin target_PSC_admin_userid --dest-domain-name target_FQDN --dest-vc-

fqdn target_vCenter_server

You are prompted for the administrator password.

The pre-check writes the conflict details to a JSON file with the location provided after pre-check.

2(Optional) Edit the conflict file and apply resolutions for all conflicts or apply a separate resolution for

each conflict.

The conflict resolutions are:

nCopy: Create a duplicate copy of the data in the target Platform Services Controller.

nSkip: Skips copying the data in the target Platform Services Controller.

nMerge: Merges the conflict without creating duplicates.

To check conflicts of tag authZ data, you must provide a vCenter Server part of the target

Platform Services Controller or the conflicts are not checked.

3Run the execute mode command. In the execute mode, the data generated during the pre-check

mode is read from the JSON file and imported to the target Platform Services Controller. Licensing

data is exported from the original Platform Services Controller. Then, the vCenter Server is repointed

to the target Platform Services Controller. For example, run the execute command with the following:

cmsso-util domain-repoint --mode execute --src-psc-admin Source_PSC_admin_userid --dest-psc-fqdn

target_PSC_FQDN --dest-psc-admin target_PSC_admin_userid --dest-domain-name target_FQDN --dest-vc-

fqdn target_vCenter_server

You are prompted for the administrator password.

Note If you do not run the pre-check command, the data is exported first and then imported to the

target Platform Services Controller. You cannot edit the conflicts during the execute mode. The pre-

check command give you the opportunity to look at the conflicts in detail and edit the conflicts file to

provide detailed input on how to handle various conflicts. To avoid any conflicts, run the pre-check

mode first to understand the conflicts and then run in execute mode.

Check that the tags and categories are migrated and all the required services are up and running.

Note If the repointing fails, collect the support bundle and revert to the snapshot taken before this

process.

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After vCenter Server is repointed to the target Platform Services Controller, the Customer Experience

Improvement Program (CEIP) participation preference is updated to the target domain preference.

What to do next

If you repointed a vCenter Server Appliance that is configured in a vSphere High Availability cluster, you

can reconfigure the vSphere HA cluster. See vSphere Availability for information about configuring

vSphere HA.

Solutions or plugins registered with vCenter Server must be registered again after a successful repoint.

Identity sources must be manually migrated. SSO configuration is not migrated. Users and policies

require manual intervention.

Syntax of the Domain Repoint Command

You can use command arguments to set the execution parameters of the domain repoint command.

The cmsso-util domain-repoint CLI repoints vCenter Server to External Platform Services Controller

in a different Domain.

You can add a space-separated list of arguments to the CLI repoint command

cmsso-util domain repoint --mode mode --src-psc-admin source_PSC_admin_userid

--dest-psc-fqdn target_PSC_FQDN --dest-psc-admin target_PSC_admin_userid

--dest-domain-name domain_name_to_repoint --dest-vc-fqdn target_vCenter_server

Argument Description

-m, --mode mode can be pre-check or execute. The pre-check argument

runs the command in pre-check mode. The execute argument

runs the command in execute mode.

-spa, --src-psc-admin SSO administrator user name for the source

Platform Services Controller. Do not append the @domain.

-dpf, --dest-psc-fqdn The FQDN of the Platform Services Controller to repoint.

-dpa, --dest-psc-admin SSO administrator user name for the destination

Platform Services Controller. Do not append @domain.

-ddn, --dest-domain-name SSO domain name of the destination

Platform Services Controller.

-dpr, --dest-psc-rhttps (Optional) HTTPS port for the destination

Platform Services Controller. If not set, the default 443 is used.

-dvf, --dest-vc-fqdn The FQDN of the vCenter Server pointing to a destination

Platform Services Controller. The vCenter Server is used to

check for component data conflicts in the pre-check mode. If not

provided, conflict checks are skipped and the default resolution

(COPY) is applied for any conflicts found during the import

process.

Note This argument is optional only if the destination domain

does not have a vCenter Server. If a vCenter Server exists in the

destination domain, this argument is mandatory.

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Argument Description

-dvr, --dest-vc-rhttps (Optional) The HTTPS port for the vCenter Server pointing to the

destination Platform Services Controller. If not set, the default

443 is used.

--ignore-snapshot (Optional) Ignore snapshot warnings.

--no-check-certs (Optional) Ignore certification validations.

--debug (Optional) Retrieves command execution detail.

-h, --help (Optional) Displays the help message for the cmsso-util

domain repoint command.

Understanding Tagging and Authorization Conﬂicts

When you run the domain repoint command in pre-check mode, data from the

Platform Services Controller is exported, examined, and conflicts are written to a file.

The following data is exported to the /storage/domain-data/ or

ProgramData/VMWare/vCenterServerdata/domain-data folder:

nAll_Privileges.json

nAll_Roles.json

nAll_TagCategories.json

nAll_Tags.json

These files contain the all the data (Authorization and Tagging) from the vCenter Server on which this

command was run.

If a secondary vCenter Server is provided using the -dvf or --dest-vc-fqdn option, any conflicts are

also exported to the same folder:

nConflicts_Roles.json

nConflicts_TagCategories.json

nConflicts_Tags.json

The following is a sample conflicts file:

<---- Sample Conflict file code block --->

{

"global" : {

"resolution" : "MERGE|SKIP|COPY",

"description" : "Default resolution option used to resolve Role Conflicts is COPY. The

conflicts list describes the differences between Role entities on source and target PSC. If

the source information represents an empty JSON array, it simply means that all the entity

attributes from source and target are identical. If the source lists few entries, it means

that only these entity attributes are missing from the target. If the target lists few entries,

it means that only these entity attributes are missing from the source. Though a global resolution

can be set, it can also be overridden at each conflict level by providing individual resolution

mode."

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"conflicts-count" : 1,

"conflicts-list" : {

"NoCryptoAdmin" : {

"source" : {

"privileges" : "[]"

"target" : {

"privileges" : "[Group-1.SamplePriv-1, Group-1.SamplePriv-4, Group-2.SamplePriv-10,

Group-2.SamplePriv-3, Group-2.SamplePriv-7, Group-3.SamplePriv-2, Group-3.SamplePriv-9]"

"resolution" : ""

}

<----- End of code block --->

The parts of the sample conflict files are:

ndescription. Provides the details on how the respective conflicts file is read and understood.

nsource and target. JSON objects that list only the differences between the source and target

Platform Services Controller objects.

nresolution. User supplies one valid resolution. Valid resolutions are MERGE, COPY, and SKIP.

To specify the resolution for handling conflicts, you can provide a default resolution option all conflicts in

the "global": "resolution" = "MERGE|SKIP|COPY" section. If you do not provide a valid global

resolution type for resolution or leave it unedited, the system uses COPY as the default resolution

option.

You can also provide a valid resolution option for each of the conflicts by editing the resolution property

at each conflict level which overrides the global resolution option.

The types of conflicts listed in Table 6‑1.

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Table 6‑1. Conﬂict Types

Conflict

Properties used to

compare Category

Objects Conflict Types

Conflicting

Properties Conflict Resolution Options

Role conflict nname: Name of the

category.

nprivilegeId: List of

privileges for the role.

RoleName conflict

occurs while

importing roles and a

role with the same

name exists in the

target

Platform Services

Controller but with

different privileges.

Properties that

can be conflicting

for RoleName

conflict type can

be Privileges.

nCOPY. A copy of the conflicting

role is created in the target

Platform Services Controller,

with –-copy appended to the

role name. The new role is

created with a new role ID with

the same set of privilege IDs.

The new role ID is updated in

the VPX_ACCESS table. The

new role ID is applicable for

both role name conflict and

role ID conflict.

Note

The default resolution option to

resolve Role conflicts is COPY.

nMERGE.The MERGE option is

resolved in the following

sequence:

a If the source

Platform Services

Controller has a role with

the same name and

privilege list as a role in the

target

Platform Services

Controller, but the role IDs

are different, the role ID

from the target

Platform Services

Controller is used and

updated in the

VPX_ACCESS table.

b If the source

Platform Services

Controller has a role with

the same name as a role in

the target

Platform Services

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Table 6‑1. Conﬂict Types (Continued)

Conflict

Properties used to

compare Category

Objects Conflict Types

Conflicting

Properties Conflict Resolution Options

Controller, but with a

different privilege list, then

the privilege lists for both

roles are merged.

nSKIP. Do nothing. The specific

role is skipped.

Tag Category

conflict: A

category name

must be unique in

Platform Services

Controller.

nname: Name of the

category.

ncardinality:

Cardinality of

Category, either

Single or Multiple.

nassociableEntityTy

pe: List of

vCenter Server object

that can be associated

with a tag from this

category. A value of

All indicates all

vCenter Server

objects.

Only one type of

conflict can be seen

while importing Tag

Categories,

CategoryName

conflict. This conflict

indicates that a

category with the

same name exists in

the target

Platform Services

Controller but with

different properties

(cardinality or

associableEntityT

ype).

Properties that

can be conflicting

for conflict type

CategoryName

can be at least

one of two types:

Cardinality or

AssociableType

nCOPY. A copy of the conflicting

category is created in the

target

Platform Services Controller,

with –-copy appended to the

category name. The new

category is created with the

same property name as in the

source

Platform Services Controller.

All the tags that were present

under this category is imported

under the newly created

CategoryCopy.

Note

The default resolution option to

resolve CategoryName

conflicts is COPY.

nMERGE. Conflicting properties

are merged with the category

that is already present in the

SSO. Properties are merged

as follows:

aDescription. The

description that is already

present is used.

bCardinality. Cardinality

cannot shrink. If there is a

cardinality conflict, the

cardinality is set to

multiple. It cannot be

reduced to single.

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Table 6‑1. Conﬂict Types (Continued)

Conflict

Properties used to

compare Category

Objects Conflict Types

Conflicting

Properties Conflict Resolution Options

cAssociableTypes.If either

the

associableEntityType

values are null, it is set to

null. Otherwise, Objects

types are merged.

nSKIP. Do nothing. All tags are

imported under the category

that exists.

Tags Conflict: A

tag object always

belongs to a

category Object.

A tag Name must

be unique only

inside a category.

nname

ndescription

Only one type of

conflict can be seen

while importing tags:

TagName conflict.

This conflict indicates

that a Tag with the

same name exists

under the same

category and in the

target

Platform Services

Controller but with

different properties.

Properties that

can be conflicting

for a conflict of

type: TagName

can be

Description.

nCOPY. A copy of the conflicting

tag is created in the target

Platform Services Controller,

with –-copy appended to the

tag name. Take the

MoRef(Internal tag ID) of the

newly created tag and update

the tag association if

necessary.

Note

The default resolution option to

resolve CategoryName

conflicts is COPY.

nMERGE.Keep the existing

description. Take the

MoRef(Internal Tag ID) and

update one or more Tag

Associations if necessary.

nSKIP. Do nothing. Do not

create this tag. Clean up any

Tag Associations.

vCenter Server Domain Repoint License Considerations

Domain repointing copies license keys to a new domain. Copying the license keys ensures that valid

licensing of all assets is maintained after repointing.

vCenter Server tracks license usage on a per domain basis. If a key is used in more than one domain,

you must ensure that the aggregate use of the key does not exceed its capacity. To simplify your license

management, remove each license copied to a second domain and assign a new license to assets.

Consider the following two cases:

nLicense keys that are no longer in use (that is, assigned to assets) in the original domain post

repointing.

nLicense keys that are in use (that is, assigned to assets) in multiple domains.

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License Keys Not in Use in a Domain

If after completing repointing, a license key appears in more than one domain, but is not in use in some of

those domains, you can remove the license key from any domain in which it is not in use. See "Remove

Licenses" in vCenter Server and Host Management for instructions on how to remove the licenses in

vCenter Server.

License Keys in Use in Multiple Domains

If after completing repointing, a license key is in use (that is, assigned to assets) in more than one

domain, to remove the license key from all but one domain, first a different license key must be assigned

to each asset in domains from which the license key will be removed. Two common approaches:

nIf you have other license keys available with sufficient unused capacity, you might use these other

keys in place of a license key to be removed. See "Assign a License to Multiple Assets" in vCenter

Server and Host Management to assign licenses in vCenter Server.

nYou might divide the license keys used in more than one domain into separate license keys, one for

each domain. To divide the license keys, see the VMware knowledge base article at

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006972. To determine the capacity to be included in each of the license

keys into which the original is divided, see "Viewing Licensing Information" in vCenter Server and

Host Management to view the usage of the license key in vCenter Server for each of the domains.

Each of the resulting license keys can then be added to a different domain and assigned in

vCenter Server to assets previously licensed with the original license key. See "Create New Licenses"

in vCenter Server and Host Management to create licenses and "Assign a License to Multiple Assets"

in vCenter Server and Host Management to assign a license to multiple assets.

After different licenses are assigned to all assets, the original license key, which is no longer valid,

can be removed from all the domains using vCenter Server. See "Remove Licenses" vCenter Server

and Host Management.

Reconﬁgure a Standalone vCenter Server with an

Embedded Platform Services Controller to a

vCenter Server with an External

Platform Services Controller

If you have deployed or installed a standalone vCenter Server instance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller and you want to extend your vCenter Single Sign-On domain with more

vCenter Server instances, you can reconfigure and repoint the existing vCenter Server instance to an

external Platform Services Controller.

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Figure 6‑1. Reconﬁguration of a Standalone vCenter Server Instance with an Embedded

Platform Services Controller and Repointing it to an External Platform Services Controller

Platform Services Controller А

VM or Physical Server

vCenter Server А

Platform Services Controller А’

VM or Physical Server

Platform Services Controller А’

VM or Physical Server

vCenter Server А

Platform Services Controller А

VM or Physical Server

vCenter Server А

Deploy or install Platform Services Controller A’ as a

replication partner of Platorm Services Controller A

Reconfigure and repoint the vCenter Server

instance to Platform Services Controller A’

Table 6‑2. Legend

Arrow or line Description

Replication agreement between two Platform Services Controller

instances

vCenter Server registration with an external

Platform Services Controller

Transition step

Note The reconfiguration of a vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services Controller

and repointing it to an external Platform Services Controller instance is a one-way process after which

you cannot switch back to vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller.

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Prerequisites

nDeploy or install the external Platform Services Controller instance as a replication partner of the

existing embedded Platform Services Controller instance in the same vCenter Single Sign-On site.

Note You can determine the current vCenter Single Sign-On site by using the vmfad-cli command.

nFor a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller, log in to the

appliance shell as root and run the command.

/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vmafd-cli get-site-name --server-name localhost

nFor a Windows installation of vCenter Server instance with an embedded

Platform Services Controller, log in to the Windows machine as an administrator, open the

Windows command prompt, and run the command.

C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\vmafdd\vmafd-cli get-site-name --server-name localhost

nCreate snapshots of the vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller and the

external Platform Services Controller instance, so that you can revert to the snapshots if the

reconfiguration fails.

nIf you want to reconfigure a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller

that is configured in a vCenter HA cluster, remove the vCenter HA configuration. For information

about removing a vCenter HA configuration, see vSphere Availability.

Procedure

1Log in to the vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services Controller.

Option Steps

For a vCenter Server Appliance with

an embedded

Platform Services Controller

nIf you have direct access to the appliance console, press Alt+F1.

nIf you want to connect remotely, use SSH or another remote console connection

to start a session to the appliance.

For a Windows installation of

vCenter Server with an embedded

Platform Services Controller

prompt, and navigate to C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin.

2Verify that all Platform Services Controller services are running.

Run the service-control --status --all command.

The Platform Services Controller services that must be running are VMware License Service,

VMware Identity Management Service, VMware Security Token Service, VMware Certificate Service,

and VMware Directory Service.

3Run the cmsso-util reconfigure command.

cmsso-util reconfigure --repoint-psc psc_fqdn_or_static_ip --username username --

domain-name domain_name --passwd password [--dc-port port_number]

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where the square brackets [ ] enclose optional items.

Here, psc_fqdn_or_static_ip is the system name used to identify the external

Platform Services Controller instance. This system name must be an FQDN or a static IP address.

Note The FQDN value is case-sensitive.

The options username and password are the administrator user name and password of the vCenter

Single Sign-On domain_name.

Use the --dc-port option if the external Platform Services Controller runs on a custom HTTPS port.

The default value of the HTTPS port is 443.

For example, if the external Platform Services Controller runs on a custom HTTPS port 449, you must

run:

cmsso-util reconfigure --repoint-psc psc.acme.local --username administrator --

domain-name vsphere.local --passwd Password1! --dc-port 449

4Log in to the vCenter Server instance by using the vSphere Web Client to verify that the

vCenter Server instance is running and can be managed.

The vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller is demoted, and the vCenter Server

is redirected to the external Platform Services Controller.

What to do next

nYou can deploy or install additional vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller instances in the

vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

nIf you reconfigured a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller that

was configured in a vCenter HA cluster, you can reconfigure the vCenter HA cluster. For information

about configuring vCenter HA, see vSphere Availability.

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Troubleshooting vCenter Server

Installation or Deployment 7

The vCenter Server installation or deployment troubleshooting topics provide solutions to problems that

you might encounter during the vCenter Server installation or vCenter Server Appliance deployment

process.

This chapter includes the following topics:

nCollecting Logs for Troubleshooting a vCenter Server Installation or Upgrade

nAttempt to Install a Platform Services Controller After a Prior Installation Failure

nMicrosoft SQL Database Set to Unsupported Compatibility Mode Causes vCenter Server Installation

or Upgrade to Fail

Collecting Logs for Troubleshooting a vCenter Server

Installation or Upgrade

You can collect installation or upgrade log files for vCenter Server. If an installation or upgrade fails,

checking the log files can help you identify the source of the failure.

You can choose the Installation Wizard method or the manual method for saving and recovering log files

for a vCenter Server for Windows installation failure.

You can also collect deployment log files for vCenter Server Appliance.

nCollect Installation Logs by Using the Installation Wizard

You can use the Setup Interrupted page of the installation wizard to browse to the generated .zip

file of the vCenter Server for Windows installation log files.

nRetrieve Installation Logs Manually

You can retrieve the installation log files manually for examination.

nCollect Deployment Log Files for the vCenter Server Appliance

If the vCenter Server Appliance deployment fails, you can retrieve the log files and examine them for

the reason of the failure.

nExport a vCenter Server Support Bundle for Troubleshooting

You can export the support bundle of the vCenter Server instance in the vCenter Server Appliance

for troubleshooting using the URL displayed on the DCUI home screen.

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Collect Installation Logs by Using the Installation Wizard

You can use the Setup Interrupted page of the installation wizard to browse to the generated .zip file of

the vCenter Server for Windows installation log files.

If the installation fails, the Setup Interrupted page appears with the log collection check boxes selected by

default.

Procedure

1Leave the check boxes selected and click Finish.

The installation files are collected in a .zip file on your desktop, for example, VMware-VCS-logs-

time-of-installation-attempt.zip, where time-of-installation-attempt displays the year, month,

date, hour, minutes, and seconds of the installation attempt.

2Retrieve the log files from the .zip file on your desktop.

What to do next

Examine the log files to determine the cause of failure.

Retrieve Installation Logs Manually

You can retrieve the installation log files manually for examination.

Procedure

1Navigate to the installation log file locations.

n%PROGRAMDATA%\VMware\vCenterServer\logs directory, usually

C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\logs

n%TEMP% directory, usually C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp

The files in the %TEMP% directory include vc-install.txt, vminst.log, pkgmgr.log, pkgmgr-

comp-msi.log, and vim-vcs-msi.log.

2Open the installation log files in a text editor for examination.

Collect Deployment Log Files for the vCenter Server Appliance

If the vCenter Server Appliance deployment fails, you can retrieve the log files and examine them for the

reason of the failure.

The full path to the log files is displayed in the vCenter Server Appliance deployment wizard.

In case of firstboot failure, you can download the support bundle on a Windows host machine and

examine the log files to determine which firstboot script failed. See Export a vCenter Server Support

Bundle for Troubleshooting.

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Procedure

1On the Windows machine that you use for deploying the vCenter Server Appliance, navigate to the

log files folder.

If you are logged in as an administrator, by default this is the

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\VMware\CIP\vcsaInstaller folder.

2Open the installation log files in a text editor for examination.

Export a vCenter Server Support Bundle for Troubleshooting

You can export the support bundle of the vCenter Server instance in the vCenter Server Appliance for

troubleshooting using the URL displayed on the DCUI home screen.

You can also collect the support bundle from the vCenter Server Appliance Bash shell by running the vc-

support.sh script.

The support bundle is exported in .tgz format.

Procedure

1Log in to the Windows host machine on which you want to download the bundle.

2Open a Web browser and enter the URL to the support bundle displayed in the DCUI.

https://appliance-fully-qualified-domain-name:443/appliance/support-bundle

3Enter the user name and password of the root user.

4Click Enter.

The support bundle is downloaded as .tgz file on your Windows machine.

5(Optional) To determine which firstboot script failed, examine the firstbootStatus.json file.

If you ran the vc-support.sh script in the vCenter Server Appliance Bash shell, to examine the

firstbootStatus.json file, run

cat /var/log/firstboot/firstbootStatus.json

Attempt to Install a Platform Services Controller After a

Prior Installation Failure

When you want to replicate Platform Services Controller data, you might not be able to join a vCenter

Single Sign-On domain in an existing Platform Services Controller.

Problem

When you try to install a Platform Services Controller, either embedded or external, and join the

Platform Services Controller to a vCenter Single Sign-On domain or site, the installation might fail and the

failure might leave incomplete data in the Platform Services Controller federation.

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Cause

The Platform Services Controller data is not cleaned up when an installation of a

Platform Services Controller fails. Consider the following scenario:

1 Install Platform Services Controller A.

2 When you try to install Platform Services Controller B and join it to the same domain as

Platform Services Controller A, the installation fails.

3 Second attempt to install Platform Services Controller B and join it to the same domain as

Platform Services Controller A fails, because Platform Services Controller A contains incomplete

data.

Solution

1Log in as an administrator to the machine on which you install Platform Services Controller A.

2At the command prompt navigate to the vdcleavefed command.

The vdcleavefed command is located at C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\vmdird\

on Windows and /usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/ on Linux.

3Run the vdcleavefed command to delete the data.

vdcleavefed -h Platform-Services-Controller-B-System-Name -u Administrator

4Install Platform Services Controller B.

Microsoft SQL Database Set to Unsupported

Compatibility Mode Causes vCenter Server Installation or

Upgrade to Fail

vCenter Server installation with a Microsoft SQL database fails when the database is set to compatibility

mode with an unsupported version.

Problem

The following error message appears: The DB User entered does not have the required

permissions needed to install and configure vCenter Server with the selected DB.

Please correct the following error(s): %s

Cause

The database version must be supported for vCenter Server. For SQL, even if the database is a

supported version, if it is set to run in compatibility mode with an unsupported version, this error occurs.

For example, if SQL 2008 is set to run in SQL 2000 compatibility mode, this error occurs.

Solution

uMake sure the vCenter Server database is a supported version and is not set to compatibility mode

with an unsupported version. See the VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes at

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php?.

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Uninstall vCenter Server 8

You must have administrator privileges to uninstall VMware vCenter Server.

Important If you are using the embedded PostgreSQL database, uninstalling vCenter Server causes the

embedded database to be uninstalled, and all data is lost.

Prerequisites

If you are uninstalling the vCenter Server system, remove the hosts from the Hosts and Clusters

inventory.

Procedure

1As an administrator user on the Windows system, click Start > Control Panel > Programs and

Features.

2Select VMware vCenter Server from the list and click Remove.

3Click Remove to confirm that you want to remove the program.

4Click Finish.

5Reboot the system.

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