With VMware Cloud Foundation, there is a number of prerequisites needed to be configured on an ESXi host before it can be commissioned or used for a management domain bringup.
When dealing with multiple ESXi hosts it is often quicker to script the configuration needed.
Based on the official documentation, the following needs to be configured before we can use the ESXi host with VCF:
1. DNS configuration (DNS servers, domain name, search domain)
2. NTP and SSH started and policy set to Start and stop with host
3. VM Network portgroup tagged with the same VLAN ID as Management Network
In addition to this, I often add the license key and rename the local datastore as part of the preparation.
Attached is a PowerCLI script that can be used to speed up the preparation.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 | <# Written by Martin Gustafsson, mgustafsson (at) vmware.comThis is a script used to prepare ESXi hosts for VMware Cloud Foundation Deployments. It can be used for both the management domain and VI workload domains. It uses the ESXi hosts defined in C:\temp\esxlist.txt, one host per line.The following is being configured:Add the ESXi licenseStart SSH and configure the policy to Start and Stop with the HostStart NTP, configure the NTP source and set the policy to Start and stop with the HostConfiguring DNS servers, domain name and search domains.Tag the portgroup "VM Network" with the same VLAN ID as the Management NetworkRename the local datastore to <short name>.localThis is based on the requirements as per our official documentation #>$user = "root"$Passwd = "VMware123!"$esxlist = get-content C:\temp\esxlist.txt$license = "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX"$ntpserver = "se.pool.ntp.org"$domainname = "eng.vmware.com"$searchdomain = "eng.vmware.com"$dns1 = "10.0.0.1"$dns2 = "10.0.0.2"foreach ($esx in $esxlist) {Connect-VIServer $esx -User $user -Password $PasswdWrite-Host -Object "Adding license key on $esx" -ForegroundColor GreenSet-VMHost -VMHost $esx -LicenseKey $licenseWrite-Host -Object "Starting SSH on $esx" -ForegroundColor Green$sshstatus= Get-VMHostService -VMHost $esx| where {$psitem.key -eq "tsm-ssh"}if ($sshstatus.Running -eq $False) {Get-VMHostService | where {$psitem.key -eq "tsm-ssh"} | Start-VMHostService }Get-VMHostservice | Where-object {$_.key -eq "tsm-ssh" } | Set-VMHostService -policy "On"Write-Host -Object "Configuring NTP to $ntpserver on $esx" -ForegroundColor GreenAdd-VMHostNtpServer $ntpserverGet-VMHostFirewallException | where {$_.Name -eq "NTP client"} | Set-VMHostFirewallException -Enabled:$trueGet-VMHostService | Where-Object {$_.key -eq "ntpd"} | Start-VMHostServiceGet-VMHostService | Where-Object {$_.key -eq "ntpd"} | Set-VMHostService -policy "On"Write-Host "Configuring DNS and Domain Name on $esx" -ForegroundColor GreenGet-VMHostNetwork -VMHost $esx | Set-VMHostNetwork -DomainName $domainname -DNSAddress $dns1 , $dns2 -SearchDomain $searchdomain -Confirm:$falseWrite-Host "Getting VLAN ID from Management Network on $esx" -ForegroundColor Green$vlanid = Get-VirtualPortgroup -name "Management Network" | % { $pg=$_ ; get-vmhostnetworkadapter -portgroup $pg | % { "$($pg.vlanid)" }}Write-Host -Object "Tagging VM Network with vlan $vlanid on vSwitch0 on $esx" -ForegroundColor GreenGet-VirtualSwitch -name vSwitch0 | Get-VirtualPortgroup -name "VM Network" | Set-VirtualPortgroup -vlanid $vlanidWrite-Host -Object "Renaming local datastore to .local on $esx" -ForegroundColor GreenGet-Datastore -Name datastore1* | %{ $n = '' + (Get-VMHost -Id $_.ExtensionData.Host[0].Key[0]).Name.Split('.')[0] + '.local';Set-Datastore -Datastore $_ -Name $n }Disconnect-VIserver * -confirm:$false} |
Thank you Martin for this Amazing script,
Just a quick tip for anyone using Powershell from Linux. You can directly store your hosts in the variable.
Eg:
$esxlist = ‘10.0.0.10’, ‘10.0.0.11’, ‘10.0.0.12’
thanks