What are my things I would like to test
The VCF Cloud Foundation Installer makes lives a lot easier! More about this coming very soon
The VCF Operations Console is looking good! I used it in the VCF 9 beta
More about this also later!
For your VCF homelab you wan to keep the resources small with a little bit overhead.
In this post I will talk about how i managed to deploy a VCF Workload Domain with a single NSX Manager, instead of the standard three nsx nodes.
Warning: Use this only in a Homelab!
The trick is to SSH into your SDDC Manager using the vcf user, and the password used during bring-up of the management domain.
When logged in, run su and log in as root using the password used during bring-up.
run: vi /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application-prod.properties
Hit i in your keyboard to go into insert mode. Go to the end of the file, and append the following:
nsxt.manager.formfactor=medium
nsxt.manager.resources.validation.skip=true
nsxt.manager.cluster.size=1
nsxt.manager.wait.minutes=120
This will make it so that any workload domain you deploy has one NSX Manager, and that it uses a smaller size. Once done, hit ESC in your keyboard, then type :wq and hit enter to save the file. (w = write, q = quit).
Then run systemctl restart domainmanager and you are good to go!
This worked in my nested Cloud Foundation deployment in my lab running 5.2.1.0.
You will still have to fill in the information for the extra nodes in the UI.
When you build your VCF Lab environment you want to create your DNS records automatically. I use for DNS a Windows Server.
The Script:
function ConvertTo-DecimalIP {
param ([string]$ip)
$parts = $ip.Split(‘.’) | ForEach-Object { [int]$_ }
return ($parts[0] -shl 24) + ($parts[1] -shl 16) + ($parts[2] -shl 8) + $parts[3]
}
function ConvertTo-DottedIP {
param ([int]$intIP)
$part1 = ($intIP -shr 24) -band 0xFF
$part2 = ($intIP -shr 16) -band 0xFF
$part3 = ($intIP -shr 8) -band 0xFF
$part4 = $intIP -band 0xFF
return “$part1.$part2.$part3.$part4”
}
$zone = “testlab.nl”
$startip = “192.168.200.10”
$dnsrecords = “vcf-m01-cb01″,”vcf-m01-sddcm01″,”vcf-m01-esx01″,”vcf-m01-esx02″,”vcf-m01-esx03″,”vcf-m01-esx04″,”vcf-w01-esx02″,”vcf-w01-esx03″,”vcf-w01-esx04″,”vcf-w01-esx04″,”vcf-m01-nsx01a”,”vcf-m01-nsx01b”,”vcf-m01-nsx01c”,”vcf-m01-nsx01″,”vcf-w01-nsx01a”,”vcf-w01-nsx01b”,”vcf-w01-nsx01c”,”vcf-w01-nsx01″,”vcf-m01-vc01″,”vcf-w01-vc01″
$count = $dnsrecords.count
# Convert start IP to decimal
$decimalIP = ConvertTo-DecimalIP $startIP
$i = 0
# Loop and print incremented IPs
foreach ($dnsrecord in $dnsrecords) {
$i -lt
$count;
$i++
$currentDecimalIP = $decimalIP + $i
$currentIP = ConvertTo-DottedIP $currentDecimalIP
Add-DnsServerResourceRecordA -Name $dnsrecord -ZoneName $zone -AllowUpdateAny -IPv4Address $currentIP -CreatePtr
Write-Output “DNS record $dnsrecord in $zone with $currentIP is created” -ForegroundColor Green
By passing either of the new VCP-VCF level certification exam(s), anyone maintaining an active VMUG Advantage membership can receive 3 years worth of extensive VMware Cloud Foundation licensing for home lab use!
The VMUG Advantage program has offered affordable home lab VMware licensing packages for years, but did cover most over the entire product portfolio.
Last year Broadcom made a change into this.
Option 1: Get vSphere Standard Edition 32 cores for 1 year: Pass one of the following VCP certification exams
Option 2: Get VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 128 cores for 3 years: Purchase & Maintain VMUG Advantage, pass the following VCP certification exam.
A VMUG Advantage membership was complimentary for vExperts in 2025
The membership is $210 otherwise, and does include a voucher for a 50% discounted VCP-VCF exam
With the requirements in place, head to the Broadcom “VCP Certification Non-Production Licenses” portal and request licenses.
On the 4th Oktober VMware Skyline was end of life.
VMware Skyline was great:
• Proactive Issue Identification
• Automated Insights
• Health Scans and Remediation
• Integration with support
VMware by Broadcom are building critical Findings and Self-Help recommendations directly in product starting with VCF (from 5.2) and Aria Operations (from v8.18 July 2024)
Many of the other Skyline features are being planned for inclusion in future releases in Cloud Foundation and Aria Operations. We will see what the future will bring.
But for now how do you get this working.
First Step:
Update Aria Operations to 8.18.2 (Lastest)
Second Steps:
1. vCenter (Don’t for get enable vSAN), NSX, VCF, Aria vRA
2. Configure log collection in Aria Logs for the following components:
• Configure vCenter server integration in Aria for Logs
• Configure log forwarding on vCenter server, ESXi hosts(automatically in Aria FOR logs), and SDDC manager
3. Integrating VMware Aria Operations for Logs and VMware Aria Operations
4. Connect Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD)
5. In Aria LoginSight check the vRops integration checkboxes
Bij default Enable launch in context can be disabled when configured at first.
After upgrading and checking the settings its finally working 😊 (It can take some time).
Microsoft has identified an issue that affects Windows Server domain controllers (DCs), and has expedited a resolution that can be applied to affected devices. Out-of-band (OOB) updates have been released for some versions of Windows today, March 22, 2024, to addresses this issue related to a memory leak in the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS). This occurs when on-premises and cloud-based Active Directory domain controllers service Kerberos authentication requests.
This issue is not expected to impact Home users, as it is only observed in some versions of Windows Server. Domain controllers are not commonly used in personal and home devices.
Updates are available on the Microsoft Update Catalog only. These are cumulative updates, so you do not need to apply any previous update before installing them, and they supersede all previous updates for affected versions. If your organization uses the affected server platforms as DCs and you haven’t deployed the March 2024 security updated yet, we recommend you apply this OOB update instead. For more information and instructions on how to install this update on your device, consult the below resources for your version of Windows:
Note: The OOB release for Windows Server 2019 will be released in near term.
Sometimes you want to make a design of something.
A whiteboard is then very handy. In most cases you would to like to use Microsoft Visio.
But on my home pc I don’t have Visio. A free alternative is Excalidraw.
You can draw some thing cool like this: (This for Demo only has no function)
Highlight some libraries.excalidraw.com:
IT icons
Microsoft 365 icons
VMware Architecture Design
Veeam
Veeam unofficial
Technology Logos
Fortinet
Kubernetes Icons Set
Microsoft Azure cloud icons
Misc Azure Icons
Azure General
Azure Compute
Azure Storage
Azure Containers
Azure Network
Azure cloud services icons
Cloud
Would be nice if we see more venders on the list.
So I interested to trying to deploy latest release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.0 on my Windows 11 Home PC witch have 128GB and 16 core intel cpu.
William Lee wrote a nice artikel about VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 running on Intel NUC
Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by VMware, please use at your own risk.
Requirements:
Step 1 – Boot up the ESXi installer from de iso mount and then perform a standard ESXi installation.
Step 2 – Once ESXi is up and running, you will need to minimally configure networking along with an FQDN (ensure proper DNS resolution), NTP and specify which SSD should be used for the vSAN capacity drive. You can use the DCUI to setup the initial networking but recommend switching to ESXi Shell afterwards and finish the require preparations steps as demonstrated in the following ESXCLI commands:
esxcli system ntp set -e true -s pool.ntp.org
esxcli system hostname set –fqdn vcf-m01-esx01.wardvissers.nl
Note: Use vdq -q command to query for the available disks for use with vSAN and ensure there are no partitions residing on the 600GB disks.
Don’t change time server pool.ntp.org.
To ensure that the self-signed TLS certificate that ESXi generates matches that of the FQDN that you had configured, we will need to regenerate the certificate and restart hostd for the changes to go into effect by running the following commands within ESXi Shell:
/bin/generate-certificates
/etc/init.d/hostd restart
Step 3 – Deploy the VMware Cloud builder in a separate environment and wait for it to be accessible over the browser. Once CB is online, download the setup_vmware_cloud_builder_for_one_node_management_domain.sh setup script and transfer that to the CB system using the admin user account (root is disabled by default).
Step 4 – Switch to the root user and set the script to have the executable permission and run the script as shown below
su –
chmod +x setup_vmware_cloud_builder_for_one_node_management_domain.sh
./setup_vmware_cloud_builder_for_one_node_management_domain.sh
The script will take some time, especially as it converts the NSX OVA->OVF->OVA and if everything was configured successfully, you should see the same output as the screenshot above.
Step 4 – Download the example JSON deployment file vcf50-management-domain-example.json and and adjust the values based on your environment. In addition to changing the hostname/IP Addresses you will also need to replace all the FILL_ME_IN_VCF_*_LICENSE_KEY with valid VCF 5.0 license keys.
Step 5 – The VMnic in the Cloud Builder VM will acked als a 10GB NIC so I started the deployment not through powershell but normal way in Cloud Builder GUI.
Your deployment time will vary based on your physical resources but it should eventually complete with everything show success as shown in the screenshot below. (I have one retry for finish)
Here are some screenshots VCF 5.0 deployment running on my home PC.
Check this if you have problems logging in NSX:
https://www.wardvissers.nl/2023/07/26/nsx-endless-spinning-blue-cirle-after-login/
1. Reploy with use of the Holo-Router https://core.vmware.com/resource/holo-toolkit-20-deploy-router#deploy-holo-router
2. Testing if can deploy Single Host VCF Workload Domain, on same way by following this blog post HERE! 😁
If I can start another 64GB ESXi Server.
The VMware Cloud Foundation team is pleased to announce the availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0
Waiting for VMUG Advantive to be updatet & Finding the time to test it out.
The VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Holodeck Toolkit is designed to provide a scalable, repeatable way to deploy nested Cloud Foundation hands-on environments directly on VMware ESXi hosts. These environments are ideal for multi-team hands on exercises exploring the capabilities of utilitizing VCF to deliver a Customer Managed VMware Cloud.
Delivering labs in a nested environment solves several challenges with delivering hands-on for a product like VCF, including:
The “VLC Holodeck Standard Main 1.3” configuration is a nested VMware Cloud Foundation configuration used as the baseline for several Private Cloud operation and consumption lab exercises created by the Cloud Foundation Technical Marketing team. The Holodeck standard “VLC-Holo-Site-1” is the primary configuration deployed. The optional VLC-Holo-Site-2 can be deployed at any time later within a Pod. VLC-Holo-Site-1 configuration matches the lab configuration in the VCF Hands-On Lab HOL-2246 and the nested configuration in the VCF Experience program run on the VMware Lab Platform.
Each Pod on a Holodeck deployment runs an identical nested configuration. A pod can be deployed with a standalone VLC-Holo-Site-1 configuration, or with both VLC-Holo-Site-1 and VLC-Holo-Site-2 configurations active. Separation of the pods and between sites within a pod is handled at the VMware vSphere Standard Switch (VSS) level. Each Holodeck pod connects to a unique VSS and Port Group per site. A VMware vSphere Port Group is configured on each VSS and configured as a VLAN trunk.
The VLC Holodeck configuration customizes the VCF Cloud Builder Virtual Machine to provide several support services within the pod to remove the requirement for specific customer side services. A Cloud Builder VM is deployed per Site to provide the following within the pod:
The figure below shows a logical view of the VLC-Holo-Site-1 configuration within a Holodeck Pod. The Site-1 configuration uses DNS domain vcf.sddc.lab.
Figure 1: Holodeck Nested Diagram
The Holodeck package also provides a preconfigured Photon OS VM, called “Holo-Router”, that functions as a virtualized router for the base environment. This VM allows for connecting the nested environment to the external world. The Holo-Router is configured to forward any Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) traffic to the nested jump host, known as the Holo-Console, which is deployed within the pod.
The user interface to the nested VCF environment is via a Windows Server 2019 “Holo-Console” virtual machine. Holo-Console provides a place to manage the internal nested environment like a system administrators desktop in a datacenter. Holo-Console is used to run the VLC package to deploy the nested VCF instance inside the pod. Holo-Console VM’s are deployed from a custom-built ISO that configures the following
The figure below shows the virtual machines running on the physical ESXi host to deliver a Holodeck Pod called “Holo-A”. Notice an instance of Holo-Console, Holo-Router, Cloud Builder and four nested ESXi hosts. They all communicate over the VLC-A-PG Port Group
Figure 2: Holodeck Nested Hosts
Adding a second site adds an additional instance of Cloud Builder and additional nested ESXi hosts. VLC-Holo-Site-2 connects to the second internal leg of the Holo-Router on VLAN 20. Network access from the Holo-Console to VLC-Holo-Site-2 is via Holo-Router.
The figure below shows a logical view of the VLC-Holo-Site-2 configuration within a Holodeck Pod. The Site-2 configuration uses DNS domain vcf2.sddc.lab
Figure 3: Holodeck Site-2 Diagram
User access to the Holodeck pod is via the Holo-Console. Access to Holo-Console is available via two paths:
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