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When I'm setting up a nested vSphere lab, I don't wont to spend a lot of time doing the actual setup and start playing as soon as possible. Up until now I've used the ESXi appliance distributed by William Lam. My current workflow looks like this:
- Import OVF to vCenter using OVF customization
- Boot the imported VM so the parameters get picked up by the guest OS
- Done!
With a simple PowerShell script it is possible to deploy the OVF, add some advanced parameters to the VMX and have a working nested ESXi after the initial boot. All in one simple "wizard" like experience.
Most of the waiting time is used to deploy the OVF itself so I thought to myself: why not shorten the time needed to set up a nested lab! And if I do so using linked clones, I get the shortest deployment time possible, since it's just a thin clone. It should be possible since the script imports the same OVF multiple times anyway. I'll try to import the OVF once, make a snapshot and use the snapshot as the base template for the linked clones. Once the linked clone is created I'll add the advanced parameters to the VMX and get the nested lab off and running! So the new workflow should look like:
- Make linked clone
- Add advanced parameters to the VMX
- Boot the imported VM so the parameters get picked up by the guest OS
- Done!
Since I set up most of my labs the same way, there are some entries added to the script variables that don't change between script runs. The only variable that has to be entered into the clone script each and every time is the number of nested ESXi hosts I want. This changes every time I set up a lab so I've used a Read-Host prompt for that. I mostly use VSAN or some type of shared storage for the lab, so I set the createvmfs variable to false. If I don't use VSAN, I usually set up a Starwind Virtual SAN. It's an easy to set up iSCSI target with a free 2-node license for many IT professionals. It also offers VAAI support and some storage acceleration, so that's nice.
Creating one ESXi clone takes about 30 seconds until boot. During the first boot it runs through some configuration scripts and is ready to be used in under two minutes.
Next up will be a blogpost on how to automate a vCenter deployment into this lab and a script to add the nested ESXi hosts to the fresh vCenter server. Adding all of these together should give you a quick and easy way to deploy a nested vSphere lab.
New script (for the linked clones)
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 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 | # Script by Hans Lenze Kaper - www.kaperschip.nl # heavily inspired by William Lam - www.virtuallyghetto.com # Variables for connecting to vCenter server $viServer = "192.168.2.200" $viUsername = "root" $viPassword = "password" # Variables for the lab host $sourceVM = 'nestedESXi-template' $sourceSnapshot = '20160904' $destDatastore = 'SSD1' $destVMhost = "192.168.2.230" $numberNestedESXiInput = read-host -Prompt "How many nested ESXi hosts do you want to deploy?" # Variables for the nested lab $iprange = "192.168.10" $netmask = '255.255.255.0' $gateway = '192.168.10.254' $dns = '192.168.10.254' $dnsdomain = 'test.local' $ntp = '192.168.2.254' $syslog = '192.168.10.100' $password = 'password' $ssh = "True" $createvmfs = "False" # Creates a Datastore1 VMFS volume on every host if true # Actions - pay attention when making changes below - things may break # $numberNestedESXi = (100 + $numberNestedESXiInput) . 'C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI\Modules\VMware.VimAutomation.Core\VMware.VimAutomation.Core.ps1' Connect-VIServer -Server $viServer -User $viUsername -Password $viPassword 101..$numberNestedESXi | Foreach { $ipaddress = "$iprange.$_" # Try to perform DNS lookup try { $vmname = ([System.Net.Dns]::GetHostEntry($ipaddress).HostName).split(".")[0] write-host "Resolved $vmname" } Catch [system.exception] { $vmname = "vesxi-$ipaddress" write-host "Set VMname to $vmname" } # Make my nested ESXi VM already! Write-Host "Deploying $vmname ..." $vm = new-vm -Name $vmname -Datastore $destDatastore -ReferenceSnapshot $sourceSnapshot -LinkedClone -VM (get-vm $sourceVM) -vmhost $destVMhost # Add advanced parameters to VMX New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.hostname -Value $vmname -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.ipaddress -Value $ipaddress -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.netmask -Value $netmask -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.gateway -Value $gateway -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.dns -Value $dns -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.dnsdomain -Value $dnsdomain -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.ntp -Value $ntp -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.syslog -Value $syslog -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.password -Value $password -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.ssh -Value $ssh -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false New-AdvancedSetting -Name guestinfo.createvmfs -Value $createvmfs -Entity $vm -Confirm:$false $vm | Start-Vm -RunAsync | Out-Null Write-Host "Starting $vmname" } |
Old script (for deploying the OVF)
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 60 61 | # William Lam # www.virtuallyghetto.com . "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI\Scripts\Initialize-PowerCLIEnvironment.ps1" $vcname = "192.168.2.200" $vcuser = "root" $vcpass = "password" $ovffile = "%userprofile%\Desktop\Nested ESXi\Nested_ESXi_Appliance.ovf" $cluster = "VSAN Cluster" $vmnetwork = "Lab_network" $datastore = "SSD1" $iprange = "192.168.10" $netmask = "255.255.255.0" $gateway = "192.168.10.254" $dns = "192.168.10.254" $dnsdomain = "test.local" $ntp = "192.168.10.254" $syslog = "192.168.10.150" $password = "password" $ssh = "True" #### DO NOT EDIT BEYOND HERE #### $vcenter = Connect-VIServer $vcname -User $vcuser -Password $vcpass -WarningAction SilentlyContinue erver $vcenter -Confirm:$false $datastore_ref = Get-Datastore -Name $datastore $network_ref = Get-VirtualPortGroup -Name $vmnetwork $cluster_ref = Get-Cluster -Name $cluster $vmhost_ref = $cluster_ref | Get-VMHost | Select -First 1 $ovfconfig = Get-OvfConfiguration $ovffile $ovfconfig.NetworkMapping.VM_Network.value = $network_ref 190..192 | Foreach { $ipaddress = "$iprange.$_" # Try to perform DNS lookup try { $vmname = ([System.Net.Dns]::GetHostEntry($ipaddress).HostName).split(".")[0] } Catch [system.exception] { $vmname = "vesxi-vsan-$ipaddress" } $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.hostname.value = $vmname $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.ipaddress.value = $ipaddress $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.netmask.value = $netmask $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.gateway.value = $gateway $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.dns.value = $dns $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.domain.value = $dnsdomain $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.ntp.value = $ntp $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.syslog.value = $syslog $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.password.value = $password $ovfconfig.common.guestinfo.ssh.value = $ssh # Deploy the OVF/OVA with the config parameters Write-Host "Deploying $vmname ..." $vm = Import-VApp -Source $ovffile -OvfConfiguration $ovfconfig -Name $vmname -Location $cluster_ref -VMHost $vmhost_ref -Datastore $datastore_ref -DiskStorageFormat thin $vm | Start-Vm -RunAsync | Out-Null } |
