VCAP-DTM Deploy Prep: Horizon Lab on Ravello Cloud importing OVA

In my last post I was writing about creating a lab for your VCAP-DTM prep. Read it here VCAP-DTM Deploy Prep: La La Land Lab and Horizon software versions. In that post I mentioned the cloud lab option with Ravello Cloud that I’m using myself. With appliances the are some o did you look at this moments while deploying them on Ravello Cloud. There are two or three appliances to take care of depending on your chosen architecture: vROPS, vIDM and VCSA. Two of those you can also do on a VM, vCenter on Windows and vROPS on Windows or Linux. For vROPS, 6.4 is the last version with a Windows installer.

I personally went with one vCenter on Windows combined with composer (Windows only), so I will skip that one. For vIDM you will have to use the OVA.

Okay, options for OVA’s and getting them deployed: 1) directly on Ravello or 2) use nested hypervisor to deploy to, or 3) use a frog-leap with a deployment on vSphere and upload those to Ravello. The first we are going to do as the second creates a dependency with a nested hypervisor, wasting resource on that layer, getting the data there, traffic data flow, and for this lab I don’t want the hypervisor to be used other than for composer actions required in the objectives. The third, well wasn’t there a point to putting labs in Ravello Cloud.

Now how do I get my OVA deployed on Ravello?

For this we have the Ravello import tool where we can upload several VM’s, disks and installers to the environment. We first need to have the install bits for identity manager and vROPS downloaded from my.vmware.com.

In Ravello Cloud go to Library – VM – +Import VM. This will either prompt you to install Ravello Import Tool (available for Windows and Mac) or start the import tool.
In the Ravello import tool click on Upload (or Upload a new item). This will open the upload wizard. Select the Upload a VM from a OVF, OVA or Ravello Export File source. And click start to select your OVA location.

Select the vIDM OVA and upload.

But are we done?
No grab vROPS as well.

If the upload is finished we will need to verify the VM. As part of the VM import process, the Ravello Import Tool automatically gets the settings from the OVF extracted out of the OVA. Verify that the settings for this imported VM matches its original configuration or the one you want to use. You can verify at Library – VM. You will see your imported VM’s with a configuration icon. Click your VM and select the configuration, go through the tabs to check. Finish.

It normally imports the values from the OVF, it will sometimes screw up some values. When you have multiple deployment options like vROPS you will have to choose the default size. vROPS import will be set either to extra small deployment 2vCPU 8GB or very large. Or use the one you like yourself. Same goes with the External Services. I won’t put them in (yet). Checking the settings from the OVA yourself up in the next paragraph.

Now how do I get the information to verify to?

You can from the sizing calculations done in designing the solution ;). But an other wat is to look in the OVA. OVA is just an archive format for OVF and VMDK’s that make up the appliance.

We need something to extract the ova’s. Use tar on any Linux/Mac or 7Zip on a Windows. I am using tar for this example on my mac. First up getting vIDM in running my test lab.

Open a terminal and go to the download location. Extract the ova with tar xvf. xvf stands for verbosely extract file followed by the filename. Well not in that order, but that’s the way I learned to type it ;).

That give us this:

Here we see the appliance has four disks, system, db, tomcat and var vmdks.

If we look in the OVF (use VI) file, at the DiskSection we will see need to have system in front and bootable. Followed by DB, Tomcat and last var.

Still in the OVF file, next up note the resource requirements for the vIDM VM. We need that figures later on to configure the VM with the right resources. In the VirtualHardwareSection you will find Number of virtual CPUs and Memory Size sections. We will need 2 vCPUs and 6 GB of vRAM (6144). And one network interface, so reserve one IP from your lab IP scheme. Okay ready and set prepping done.

Deploying a VM from the Library

Go to the application you want to add the VM to. Click the plus sign and select the imported VM from the list. In the right pane customize the name, network, external settings and all the things you like to have set.

Save and update the Application.

Wait for all the background processes to finish, and the VM is deployed and starts. Open a console to check if the start-up goes accordingly. And it will not 😉 When you have opened a console you will notice a press any key message that the appliance fails to detect VMware’s Hypervisor and you are not supposed to run the product on this system. When you continue the application will run in an unsupported state. But we are running in a lab and not production.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS BLOG AND (MERELY) THINK ABOUT RUNNING PRODUCTION ON RAVELLO OR RUNNING PRODUCTION WITH THE IMPORTED VIDM LATER ON, GO QUIT YOUR JOB AND GO WALK THE WALK OF SHAME FOREVER.

Press any key if you can find the any key on your keyboard. And yes you will have to do this all the time you start-up. Or use the procedure highlighted at this blog post https://www.ravellosystems.com/blog/install-vcenter-server-on-cloud/  to change /etc/init.d/boot.compliance (Scroll to 4 action 2 in the post, or to MSG in the file). Do it after you have configured the VM and the required passwords. But sssst you didn’t hear that from me…..

Back to the deployment and configure the VM with hostname, DNS and IPv4. Save and restart network. After this the deployment will continue with the startup.

And now you have a started appliance. We need the install wizard for IDM. Go to the vIDM URL that is shown on the blue screen in the console. For example, https://hostname.example.com. If this is the first time it will start the install wizard. Put in the passwords you want, select your database and finish.

After that you are redirected to the login screen. Log on with your login details and voila vIDM is deployed.

Bloody Dutch in the interface, everything on my client is English except for the region settings. Have the “wrong” order in Chrome and boom vIDM is in Dutch. For the preparation and the simple fact that I cannot find anything in the user interface when its in Dutch I want to change this. Change the order in Chrome://settings – advanced settings – Languages – Language and input Settings button – drag English in front of Dutch to change the order. Refresh or click on a different tab and voila vIDM talks the language required for the VCAP-DTM or to find stuff…

Aaand the same goes for vROPS?

You can do the same with the vROPS deployment. Ravello doesn’t support the ovf properties normally used for setting vROPS appliance configuration. You miss that nifty IP address for the vROPS appliance. At the same time you have the issue that vROPS doesn’t like changes too much, it breaks easily. But follow more or less the same procedure as vIDM. For vROPS set the Ravello network to DHCP. Put in a reservation so the IP is not shared within your lab and is shown with the remote console. The IP reservation is used in the appliance itself. It is very important that an IP is set correctly on first boot, else it will break 11 out of 10 times. I have also noticed that setting a static IP in Ravello is not copied to the appliance, use a DHCP for vROPS works more often.

And now for vROPS:

• Press any key to continue the boot sequence.
• The initial screen needs you to press ALT+F1 to go to the prompt.
• the vROPS console password of root is blank the first time you logon to the console. You will have to set the password immediately and it’s a little strict compared to for example the vIDM appliance.
• the appliance (hopefully) starts with DHCP configured. And you can open a session to the hostname.
• [Optional if you don’t trust the DHCP reservation] Within vROPS appliance. Change the IP to manual to stay fixed within vROPS so it will not break when changing IP’s. Use the IP it received from the DHCP, do not change or you will have to follow the change IP configuration procedure for master IP (see a how to blog post here: http://imallvirtual.com/change-vrops-master-node-ip-address/):

Changing vROPS DHCP to static:
Run /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net. Choose option 6 and put in your values, choose option 4 and put yours in and change hostname etc……

Next reboot the appliance and verify the boot up and IP address is correct. If you get to the initial cluster configuration your ready and set.

Other issues failing the deployment are resolved by redeploying the VM, sometimes by first re-downloading and re-importing the OVA in Ravello.

Do choose New installation and get it up for the VCAP-DTM objectives.

If you happen to have enough patience and your application is not set to stop during the initial configuration, you will have a vROPS appliance to use in your Horizon preparations.

So appliances are no issue for Ravello?

Well I do not know for all appliances, but for Horizon the appliance only components that are needed for a VCAP-DTM lab can be deployed on Ravello.

 

-Happy Labbing in Ravello Cloud!

 

Sources: ravellosystems.com, vmware.com