Step 6. Install and configure the Lenovo XClarity Administrator virtual appliance (ESXi using VMware vCenter Client)

Install and configure the XClarity Administrator virtual appliance on the ESXi host that was just installed using the VMware vCenter Client.

Procedure

To install the Lenovo XClarity Administrator virtual appliance, complete the following steps.

  1. Download the XClarity Administrator virtual-appliance image from the XClarity Administrator download webpage to a client workstation. Log on to the Web site, and then use the access key that was given to you to download the image.

    For ESXi, download the image in OVF format.

  2. Install and configure the virtual appliance on the host.
    1. Connect to the host through the VMware vCenter Client.
    2. Right-click the vCenter node, and click Deploy OVF Template.
      To deploy the virtual appliance, keep the following considerations in mind as you progress through the deployment wizard.
      • Select source. Select the OVA file for Lenovo XClarity Administrator

      • Select name and folder. Choose an appliance name that is unique to this host.
      • Select configuration. Choose the configuration size based on the size of your environment.
        • Small (up to 100 managed endpoints). 2 CPUs and 8 GB RAM

        • Medium (up to 400 managed endpoints). 6 CPUs and 12 GB RAM

        • Large (up to 600 managed endpoints). 8 CPUs and 16 GB RAM

        • Extra Large (up to 1000 managed endpoints). 12 CPUs and 24 GB RAM

        Tip: You can change the CPU and RAM settings in VMware. For information about more granular configuration-recommendations based on the number of devices in your environment, see XClarity Administrator: Performance Guide (White paper).
      • Select resource. Choose the ESXi host that you want to use for this virtual appliance.
      • Select storage. Choose a datastore that has a minimum of 192 GB of storage available, and choose the virtual disk format that meets the needs of your organization. If you are not sure which format to choose, select Thin Provision.
      • Select networks. Choose Bridge to VM Network. You will modify this setting when you associate the virtual machine with the network.
        Important: XClarity Administrator includes the VMXNET 3 driver. You can ignore any VMware errors that say that the driver is not supported. For more information, see VMware Docs – About Migration Compatibility Checks.
      • Customize templates.
        • If you are using DHCP, specify no in the field.

        • If you are using a static IP address for XClarity Administrator management port, specify yes in the Configure initial IP setting field, and then specify the static IP protocols, addresses, netmasks, DNS servers, and gateways.

        Note:
        • You can also choose to use a configuration file to specify the IP address setting before powering on the virtual appliance (see Using a configuration file to set the IP address below).

        • The order of fields on this page might vary depending on your web browser and version of ESXi.

      • Ready to complete. Clear the Power on after deployment option.

      The following figure show example configuration settings when the wizard is complete.


      Illustrates a Service and Support page during initial setup.
    3. Click Finish to complete the initialize and deploy XClarity Administrator. This might take several minutes.
      Attention: Do not power on the virtual appliance until after completing the next three steps. Otherwise, the XClarity Administrator is booted with the default DHCP IP setting.
    4. If you are configured static IP addresses for the XClarity Administrator management port, complete these steps before powering on the virtual appliance:
      1. From the vCenter client, select the XClarity Administrator virtual appliance in the VMWare VMs view, right-click the Manage tab, and click Edit. The Edit Settings dialog is displayed.

      2. Click the vApp Option tab, and then click OVF environment transport in the navigation pane.

      3. Ensure that the VMware Tools and Enable options are selected, and then click OK.


        Illustrates the ISO image and Enable checkboxes that are cleared on the vApp Options tab.
  3. Right-click the virtual appliance, and click Power > Power on.

    When the virtual machine is started, the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are listed for each interface, as shown in the following example.

    The XClarity Administrator eth0 management port uses a DHCP IP address by default. At the end of the XClarity Administrator boot process, you can choose to set a static IP address for the eth0 management port by entering 1 when prompted, as shown in the example below. The prompt is available for 150 seconds, until the login prompt is displayed. To proceed to the login prompt without delay, enter x at the prompt.

    Important:
    • When changing the static IP address settings, you have a maximum of 60 seconds to enter the new settings. Ensure that you have the required IP information before continuing.

      • For IPv4 settings, you must have the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway IP address

      • For IPv6 settings, you must have the IP address and prefix length

    • If you are not using a DHCP server, you can use a configuration file to specify the IP settings for the XClarity Administrator eth0 management port. that you want to use to access the XClarity Administrator. For more information, see the What to do next section below.

    • If you change the IP address settings from the console, XClarity Administrator is restarted to apply the new settings.

    • No action is required to log in. Ignore the console login message. The console interface is not for customer use.

    • You might see the message TCP: eth0: Driver has suspect GRO implementation, TCP performance may be compromised on the console. The performance of the virtual machine is not impacted, and you can ignore this warning.

    Attention: Changing the IP address of the XClarity Administrator management port after managing devices might cause the devices to be placed in offline state in XClarity Administrator. If you choose to change the IP address after XClarity Administrator is up and running, ensure that all devices are unmanaged before changing the IP address.
    ------------------------------------------
    Lenovo XClarity Administrator  Version x.x.x
    ------------------------------------------
    
    eth0   flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500  metric 1
             inet 192.0.2.10  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.0.2.55
             inet6 2001:db8:56ff:fe80:bea3  prefixlen 64   scopeid 0x20<link>
             ether 00:15:5d:0c:d1:92    txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
             RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
    
    eth1   flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500  metric 1
             inet 192.0.2.20  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.0.2.130
             inet6 2001:db8:56ff:fe80:bea3  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
    
    ===========================================================================
    ===========================================================================
    
    You have 150 seconds to change IP settings. Enter one of the following:
      1. To set a static IP address for Lenovo XClarity virtual appliance eth0 port
      2. To use a DHCP address for Lenovo XClarity virtual appliance eth0 port
      x. To continue without changing IP settings
      ... ...
    
  4. If you chose to use static IP settings for the XClarity Administrator management port in the network template (in step 2) and you changed the IP settings from the console, perform the following steps. This ensures that the IP settings that you specified from the console (and not the settings that you specified on the network template) are used each time the virtual appliance reboots.
    1. From the vCenter client, select the XClarity Administrator virtual appliance, right-click the Manage tab, and click Edit. The Edit Settings dialog is displayed.

    2. Click the vApp Option tab, and then click OVF environment transport in the navigation pane.

    3. Ensure that the VMware Tools and Enable options are cleared, and then click OK.

(Optional) Using an installation script

You can create a script, such as the following example, to install XClarity Administrator virtual appliance using the VMware ovftool (version 4.2.0 or later). You must include the following parameters in the script

Note: You must power off and then power on the virtual machine to clear the OVF environments after the XClarity Administrator deployment is complete.
#!/bin/bash

# XCLARITY virtual appliance ova file name
LXCA_OVA="lnvgy_sw_lxca_331-2.0.0_vmware_x86-64.ova"

# ESXi IP, ID and Password
ESXI_HOST="1.2.3.4"
ESXI_USERNAME="userid"
ESXI_PASSWORD="userpasswd"
# ESXi virtual switch and datastore to store the
# XClarity virtual appliance
ESXI_VM_NETWORK="VM Network"
ESXI_VM_DATASTORE="datastore2"

# XCLarity ETH0 static ip info
IPV4_BOOTPROTO="static"
LXCA_VMNAME="lxca-vm"
LXCA_DEPOPT="small"
LXCA_OVERWR="--overwrite"
LXCA_HOSTNAME="dt.labs.lenovo.com"
LXCA_IP="1.2.3.5"
LXCA_NETMASK="255.255.240.0"
LXCA_GATEWAY="1.2.0.1"
LXCA_DNS="1.2.0.10"
LXCA_CHGIP="yes"

LXCA_IP6="0::0"
IPV6_BOOTPROTO="auto"

##### Using ovftool version 4.2.0  ###
##### '--X:injectOvfEnv' and '--powerOn' are the key parameters
/usr/bin/ovftool --acceptAllEulas --X:waitForIp --skipManifestCheck ${LXCA_OVERWR} 
--X:injectOvfEnv --powerOn "--net:bridged=${ESXI_VM_NETWORK}" 
--datastore=${ESXI_VM_DATASTORE} --diskMode=thin --name=${LXCA_VMNAME} 
--deploymentOption=${LXCA_DEPOPT} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipv4.bootproto=${IPV4_BOOTPROTO} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipv4.dns1=${LXCA_DNS} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipv4.gateway=${LXCA_GATEWAY} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipv4.ipaddr=${LXCA_IP} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipv4.netmask=${LXCA_NETMASK} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipsetting=${LXCA_CHGIP} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipv6.bootproto=${IPV6_BOOTPROTO} 
--prop:guestinfo.ipv6.ipaddr=${LXCA_IP6} ${LXCA_OVA} 
"vi://${ESXI_USERNAME}:${ESXI_PASSWORD}@${ESXI_HOST}/"

if [[ "$?" -eq 0 ]]; then
    exit 0
else
    exit 999
fi
The example script returns the following output
[root@localhost dtest]# ./depl.sh
Opening OVA source: lnvgy_sw_lxca_331-2.0.0_vmware_x86-64.ova
Opening VI target: vi://root@1.2.3.4:443/
Deploying to VI: vi://root@1.2.3.4:443/
Transfer Completed
Powering on VM: lxca-vm
Task Completed
Received IP address: 1.2.3.5

(Optional) Using a configuration file to set the IP settings

If you are not using a DHCP server, you can optionally use a configuration file to specify the IP settings that you want to use to access the XClarity Administrator web interface using the Eth0 network interface.

The configuration file (eth0_config) is contained in an ISO file that you create and mount to the virtual machine before XClarity Administrator is started for the first time. When XClarity Administrator starts the first time, it configures the IP address for the Eth0 network using the static IP address that is defined in the eth0_config file and displays the web interface to set up initially and configure the appropriate settings (see Configuring Lenovo XClarity Administrator).

Restriction: Only the Eth0 network can be configured using this method. Creating a configuration file named eth1_config does not configure the Eth1 network.

To use a configuration file, perform the following steps before powering on the virtual appliance

  1. Create a file named eth0_config (with no file extension) that contains the following IPv4 parameters that you want the virtual machine to use at startup.

    • IPV4_ADDR=
    • IPV4_NETMASK=
    • IPV4_GATEWAY=
    • IPV6_ADDR=
    • IPV6_GATEWAY=
    You can use the echo command to create the file, for example:
    ECHO IPV4_ADDR=1.1.1.1 > ./eth0_config
    ECHO IPV4_NETMASK=255.255.255.05 >> ./eth0_config
    ECHO IPV4_GATEWAY=1.1.1.5 >> ./eth0_config
    ECHO IPV6_ADDR=1001:1002:1003:1004::2 >> ./eth0_config
    ECHO IPV6_GATEWAY=1001:1002:1003:1004::1 >> ./eth0_config
    Note: The IPV6_ADDR and IPV6_GATEWAY parameters are supported in XClarity Administrator v1.1.1 and later.
  2. Create an ISO image that contains the eth0_config file.

    To create an ISO image on Windows, use your favorite ISO software. On Linux, use the mkisofs command, for example:

    mkisofs -V IP4ADDR -J -o ./boot.iso ./eth0_config

    where -V is the volume label, -J is for Joliet format, -o is the output file name, and ./eth0_config is the file to be included in the ISO image.

  3. Upload the ISO image to a suitable location using the Datastore Browser.

  4. Mount the .ISO image to the virtual machine. The ISO file must reside in the datastore of the ESXi host so that it can be mounted as a CD/DVD drive on the XClarity Administrator virtual machine.

    1. Right click the virtual machine, and click Edit Settings.
    2. Click Add to display the Add Hardware wizard.
    3. Click CD/DVD Drive, and click Next.
    4. Select Use ISO image, and click Next.
    5. Select the ISO image, and click Next.
    6. Select the virtual device node, and click Next.
    7. Click Finish.
    Note: You can unmount the drive and delete the ISO image after you log in to the XClarity Administrator web interface and finish configuring the appropriate settings.

After you finish

Log in and configure XClarity Administrator (see Accessing the Lenovo XClarity Administrator web interface for the first time and Configuring Lenovo XClarity Administrator).