vSential - virtualization in the real world

VMworld 2013 US/EMEA – VCM4875: Getting Started with vCenter Orchestrator

James Bowling — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:00:08 +0000

I am very excited to announce that I had a session accepted for presentation at both VMworld US and EMEA this year! I will be presenting with my good friend Thomas Corfmat (@tcorfmat), Senior Product Manager at VMware. This session will take you through the steps for deploying/configuring vCO, along with some good day-to-day use cases. Here is the abstract:

VMware’s push for the Software-Defined Datacenter brings some interesting challenges to the desk of the VMware Architects, Engineers, and Administrators. In order to drive innovation we need to be able to automate certain aspects of our jobs within the virtual infrastructure. VMware vCenter Orchestrator is a tool that can do this. A daunting task at first but with this session you will see that it is very simple to get started with some basic tasks. In this technical session, we’ll go through installation workflow creation/modification, and day-to-day use cases.

I am honored to have this opportunity to present at such a great conference! I hope to bring some awesome content for everyone to show that within the Software-Defined Data Center automation/orchestration are key to the success of this shift. We will also be giving away some goodies too! So be sure to come join me for this awesome session! See you there!

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

Export/Import vCloud Director 5.1 OrgNetworks with PowerCLI

James Bowling — Thu, 30 May 2013 16:00:40 +0000

I decided to provide an extension on the last post I did, Creating OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI. I had a need for being able to export OrgNetworks from a vCD 5.1 environment and be able to replicate/rebuild/recreate the OrgNetworks from the exported list. Due to this need I attempted to create a PowerCLI script to do this for me. Here is what I came up with, mind you it isn’t the sexiest script in the world but it worked for my needs and can be easily adjusted to fit yours.

Here is the script for the export:

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#
# Export-OrgNetworks.ps1
# Created by: James Bowling
#

<#
.SYNOPSIS
Exports OrgNetworks to a CSV file export

.DESCRIPTION
Use this script to export all OrgNetworks in a specified VDC to a CSV file.

.SYNTAX
Export-OrgNetworks.ps1 -s cloud.vsential.lab -v 1001 -f OrgNetworks.csv

.PARAMETER Server
The vCloud Director server you want to connect to.

.PARAMETER Vdc
The oVDC you want to export OrgNetworks from.

.PARAMETER File
The output path and filename for the export to go to.

.EXAMPLE
Export-OrgNetworks.ps1 -s vcloud.vsential.lab -v 1001 -f OrgNetworks-Exported.csv
This command will export the OrgNetworks of oVDC 1001 into .\OrgNetworks-Exported.csv.
#>

# Take in command line arguments for vCD, oVDC, and output file.
param(
[parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage="vCD Server")][alias("-server","s")][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string[]]$CIServer,
[parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage="OrgVDC")][alias("-vdc","v")][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string[]]$OrgVdc,
[parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage="Filename")][alias("-file","f")][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string[]]$OrgNetFile
)

# Connect to vCloud Director server
Write-Host "Connecting to $CIServer..."
Connect-CIServer $CIServer | Out-Null

# Export OrgNetworks to a CSV File
Write-Host "Exporting all OrgNetworks in $OrgVdc to $OrgNetFile"

$report = @()

$report += Get-OrgNetwork | Foreach {
$_ | Select Org,Name,Description,NetworkType,Gateway,Netmask,PrimaryDns,SecondaryDns,NetworkPool,StaticIPPool,ExternalNetwork,Id,@{N="IsShared";E={($_.extensiondata.isshared)}}
}

$report | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Path $($OrgNetFile)

Write-Host "Export complete to $OrgNetFile"

# Disconnect from vCloud Director server
Disconnect-CIServer $CIServer -Confirm:$false

Pretty straight forward deal here. You run it like so:

.\Export-OrgNetworks.ps1 -s vcloud.vsential.lab -v 1001 -f OrgNetworks.csv

For an explanation of the parameters just look in the script or run get-help Export-OrgNetworks.ps1. Now that we have the wonderful CSV with our exported data, I needed to be able to parse and recreate these networks from the CSV. You need to understand that the Edge Gateway devices and all other required information was pre-built in the vCD environment. So for those of you who are looking to use this to rebuild your networks from scratch, please build the necessary backing devices as this will only build the OrgNetworks. Here is what I came up with this, again, not the sexiest script in the world but works well for me:

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#
# Rebuild-OrgNetworks.ps1
# Created by: James Bowling
#

<#
.SYNOPSIS
Recreates OrgNetworks from a CSV file export

.DESCRIPTION
Based on information within a CSV file of exported OrgNetworks, one can recreate
all OrgNetworks from this file.

.PARAMETER server
The vCloud Director server FQDN.

.PARAMETER org
The Organization name to create networks in.

.PARAMETER vdc
The OrgVDC within the Org to create the networks for.

.PARAMETER file
The input csv file of the exported OrgNetworks.

.EXAMPLE
Rebuild-OrgNetworks -s vcloud.vsential.lab -o 1002 -v 1001 -f OrgNetworks-Exported.csv
This command will rebuild the OrgNetworks in said file in said OrgVdc on said vCD Server.

.NOTES
TODO: Build checks into the code.
TODO: Add rebuild of services, if any, on routed networks.
#>

# Take in command line arguments
param(
[parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage="vCD Server")][alias("-server","s")][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string[]]$CIServer,
[parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage="Org")][alias("-org","o")][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string[]]$OrgName,
[parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage="OrgVDC")][alias("-vdc","v")][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string[]]$OrgVdc,
[parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage="Filename")][alias("-file","f")][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string[]]$OrgNetFile
)

function debug {
Write-Host ""
Write-Host "Debug Information:"
Write-Host "Org Network Name: $orgNetName"
Write-Host "Org Name: "$org.name
Write-Host "Created Network Name: "$mynetwork.name
if ($_.networktype -eq "Routed"){ Write-Host "Edge Gateway Href: "$edgegateway.href }
if ($_.networktype -eq "Routed|Isolated"){ Write-Host "IP Addresses: "$ippool[0] $ippool[1] }
if ($_.networktype -eq "Direct"){ Write-Host "External Network Href: "$externalnetwork.href }
Write-Host ""
}

function createrouted {
$orgNetName = $_.name
$org = Get-OrgVdc $OrgName | Get-CIView
$edgegateway = Search-Cloud -QueryType EdgeGateway | Get-CIView | ?{$_.name -like "$OrgName*"}
Write-Host "Creating Routed OrgNetwork: $orgNetName in $OrgName"

$mynetwork = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.orgvdcnetwork
$mynetwork.name = $orgNetName
$mynetwork.edgegateway = $edgegateway.href
$mynetwork.isshared = $_.isshared

$mynetwork.configuration = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.networkconfiguration
$mynetwork.configuration.fencemode = "natRouted"

$mynetwork.configuration.ipscopes = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipscopes
$scope = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipscope
$scope.gateway = $_.gateway
$scope.netmask = $_.netmask
$scope.dns1 = $_.primarydns
$scope.dns2 = $_.secondarydns

$scope.ipranges = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipranges
$scope.ipranges.iprange = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.iprange

# Split StaticIPPools string for separation of start/end addresses
$ippool = @()
$ippool += @($_.staticippool.split("-").trim())

$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].startaddress = $ippool[0]
$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].endaddress = $ippool[1]

$mynetwork.configuration.ipscopes.ipscope += $scope

$result = $org.CreateNetwork($mynetwork)
if ($debug -eq "1"){ debug }
}

function createdirect {
# Get External Network HRef Value
Write-Host "Retrieving External Network HRef Id..."
$externalnetworkname = $_.externalnetwork
$externalnetwork = Get-ExternalNetwork | Get-CIView | ?{$_.name -like "$externalnetworkname*"}

$orgNetName = $_.Name
$org = Get-OrgVdc $OrgName | Get-CIView
Write-Host "Creating Direct OrgNetwork: $orgNetName in $OrgName"

$mynetwork = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.orgvdcnetwork
$mynetwork.name = $OrgNetName
$mynetwork.isshared = $_.isshared

$mynetwork.configuration = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.networkconfiguration
$mynetwork.configuration.fencemode = "bridged"

$mynetwork.configuration.parentnetwork = New-Object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.reference
$mynetwork.configuration.parentnetwork.href = $externalnetwork.href

$result = $org.CreateNetwork($mynetwork)
if ($debug -eq "1"){ debug }
}

function createisolated {
$orgNetName = $_.Name
$org = Get-OrgVdc $OrgName | Get-CIView
Write-Host "Creating Isolated OrgNetwork: $orgNetName in $OrgName"

$mynetwork = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.orgvdcnetwork
$mynetwork.name = $orgNetName
$mynetwork.isshared = $_.isshared

$mynetwork.configuration = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.networkconfiguration
$mynetwork.configuration.fencemode = "isolated"

$mynetwork.configuration.ipscopes = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipscopes
$scope = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipscope
$scope.gateway = $_.gateway
$scope.netmask = $_.netmask
$scope.dns1 = $_.primarydns
$scope.dns2 = $_.secondarydns

$scope.ipranges = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipranges
$scope.ipranges.iprange = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.iprange

# Split StaticIPPools string for separation of start/end addresses
$ippool = @()
$ippool += @($_.staticippool.split("-").trim())

$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].startaddress = $ippool[0]
$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].endaddress = $ippool[1]

$mynetwork.configuration.ipscopes.ipscope += $scope

$result = $org.CreateNetwork($mynetwork)
if ($debug -eq "1"){ debug }
}

# Set to 1 to enable debug output
$debug = "0"

# Connect to vCloud Director server
Connect-CIServer $CIServer | Out-Null

# Read in OrgNetwork CSV File
$OrgNetworks = Import-CSV $OrgNetFile
ForEach ($_ in $OrgNetworks){
if ($_.networktype -eq "Routed"){ createrouted }
elseif ($_.networktype -eq "Direct"){ createdirect }
elseif ($_.networktype -eq "Isolated"){ createisolated }
else { Write-Host "Cannot determine network type!" }
}

# Disconnect from vCloud Director server
Disconnect-CIServer $CIServer -Confirm:$false

The script can be run as follows: .\Rebuild-OrgNetworks.ps1 -s vcloud.vsential.lab -o 1002-Org -v 1002-VDC -f OrgNetworks.csv

At a future date I hope to add the ability to recreate any services associated with the networks and possibly the ability to create Edge Gateway devices for you, if needed. If you have any suggestions, comments, and/or questions then sound off in the comments and I will do my best to help you out. I hope to see many different iterations of this from the community and if you modify this then please let me know, I would love to see what you did!

And one more thing, like my last post, a lot of the information I used to build this was built on information that Jake Robinson (GeekAfterFive.com) posted about creating vApp networks in vCD 5.1, so definitely thanks to him for his awesomeness and guidance! So with that said, I hope that you find this useful and happy scripting!

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

Create OrgNetworks in vCloud Director 5.1 with PowerCLI

James Bowling — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:00:24 +0000

So I know I haven’t posted in a little while anything truly useful…well, hopefully, that changes with this one. I was approached by a colleague with a need for creating OrgNetworks with PowerCLI. Knowing that things changed from earlier versions when you could create new OrgNetworks with New-OrgNetwork in vCD 1.5, I needed to see how to do it the new way with Cloud Views. So first, let’s look at what information we need in order to make this work:

- Org Name
- New Org Network Name
- OrgVDC
- Edge Gateway
- IP Information (Gateway, Subnet, DNS, IP Ranges)

Here is the information I used for my test:

- Org Name: 1001
- New Org Network Name: 1001-Test
- OrgVDC: (This is generated in the script for me based on OrgName.)
- Edge Gateway: (This is generated for me via Search-Cloud and based on OrgName.)
- IP Information: Gateway – 192.168.2.1, Netmask: 255.255.255.0, DNS: 192.168.2.1
- IP Range Information: 192.168.2.100-192.168.2.200

There are a couple of things that you need to step through to gather the data and I won’t go into details of it in this post due to time. There are quite a few good examples to follow out there but nothing specific to creation of natRouted or direct OrgNetworks. One that I found very useful was Jake Robinson‘s post regarding vApp Network creation with PowerCLI, Deepdive: vCloud vApp Networks. This post led me to a good starting point along with a tad more help from him on the VMware vCloud Director PowerCLI VMTN Community Forums.

Before this gets too long winded for the time I have, here is the script:

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## Set to 1 for debug output
$debug = "1"

$orgName = "1001"
$orgNetName = "1001-Test"
$org = Get-OrgVdc $orgName | Get-CIView
$edgeGateway = Search-Cloud -QueryType EdgeGateway | Get-CIView | where {$_.name -like "$orgName*"}

$mynetwork = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.orgvdcnetwork
$mynetwork.name = $orgNetName
$mynetwork.edgegateway = $edgeGateway.id
$mynetwork.isshared = "True"

$mynetwork.configuration = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.networkconfiguration
$mynetwork.configuration.fencemode = "natRouted"

$mynetwork.configuration.ipscopes = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipscopes
$scope = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipscope
$scope.gateway = "192.168.2.1"
$scope.netmask = "255.255.255.0"
$scope.dns1 = "192.168.2.1"

$scope.ipranges = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.ipranges
$scope.ipranges.iprange = new-object vmware.vimautomation.cloud.views.iprange
$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].startaddress = "192.168.2.100"
$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].endaddress = "192.168.2.200"

$mynetwork.configuration.ipscopes.ipscope += $scope

$result = $org.CreateNetwork($mynetwork)

if ($debug -eq "1"){
write-host "OrgNetwork Name: "$mynetwork.name
write-host "OrgNetwork EdgeGateway Id: "$mynetwork.edgegateway
write-host "OrgNetwork Fence Mode: "$mynetwork.configuration.fencemode
write-host "OrgNetwork Gateway: "$scope.gateway
write-host "OrgNetwork Subnet: "$scope.netmask
write-host "OrgNetwork Dns1: "$scope.dns1
write-host "OrgNetwork IP Range Start: "$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].startaddress
write-host "OrgNetwork IP Range End: "$scope.ipranges.iprange[0].endaddress
}

Anyway, I hope this helps you figure out what you need to do to get OrgNetworks created in vCD 5.1 now. I didn’t want to go into too much detail because I have heard from a little birdie that there is going to be a deepdive about OrgNetworks on a certain good blog (Geek After Five), so keep your eyes peeled for that. Also, for a good reference of the Cloud Views since it isn’t well documented, take a look at the vCloud API Schema Reference. Now back to work for me…

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

VMworld 2013 Session Voting Open

James Bowling — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:08:16 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, the VMworld 2013 Session Voting has begun! I have submitted a couple of sessions both by myself and with some fellow colleagues. You will need a VMworld ID in order to vote.

Bilal Hashmi (cloud-buddy.com) and I will be presenting Session ID 4873, vCenter: The Unsung Hero, where we will dive into the importance of the availability of vCenter and how it affects the services around it that tie into it. We will touch on some best practices and other solutions to aid in building a resilient vCenter.

Dan Mitchell (vCO Sr. Product Manager) and I will be presenting Session ID 5703, Supercharging vSphere Web Client with vCenter Orchestrator (vCO), where we will dive into how to extend the functionality of the vSphere Web Client with the awesome-sauce of vCO.

Lastly, I will also be presenting Session ID 4875, vCenter Orchestrator: A Beginner’s Guide, where I will embark on the journey of what vCO is and how you can use it to extend your cloud automation and orchestration. I will be taking the stance of presenting in a manner that will bring light to anyone who is new to vCO!

Here is a screen of the sessions:

If you are interested and want to learn some cool stuff then go vote for the sessions, it would be greatly appreciated! You can vote by going to VMworld 2013 Public Voting and clicking on the “Thumbs Up” icon by the session name. Be sure to filter by either Session ID or my name to get the above list. There are quite a few awesome sessions this year and hopefully, with your help, I will bring some of that awesomeness to the table!

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0

James Bowling — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:27:45 +0000

So for those of us who have experienced the wonderful times of dealing with replacing or updating certificates within our VMware infrastructures, VMware came to the rescue (kind of) and provided a tool for us to use. This tool has been dubbed vCenter Certificate Automation Tool. A little excerpt from the release announcement:

Fresh out of development today VMware has a new tool to help everyone with the implementation of custom certificates. The vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0, will help customers update certificates needed for running vCenter Server and supporting components.

In order to use the tool, you must have the following:

Administrative privileges on the server(s) you are running the tool on. Although non-administrator users can download and launch the tool, all operations will fail without the proper permissions.

Access to each server that has vSphere components for which the SSL certificate will be updated.
All vCenter Server components which will have their certificates updated have already been installed and are running.
The new certificates already exist and you know the location of the new certificates. For increased security, generate each certificate and private key on the machine where it will be used. The new SSL certificate for each vSphere component must have a unique base DN.

So you don’t have to go around looking, here is a couple of links to KB articles on how to use the vCenter Certificate Automation Tool:

Just wanted to share this with the readers…enjoy!

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

PowerCLI One-liner: Check for Fast-Provisioning Enabled/Disabled on Org vDC in vCD

James Bowling — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:00:14 +0000

Ran across something and needed to be able to check to see what vDC’s had Fast-Provisioning enabled in my lab. Here is a quick one-liner to list them and if they are enabled or disabled:

1	Get-OrgVdc \| Get-CIView \| Select Name, UsesFastProvisioning \| Sort Name

Figured I would throw this up here for fun…

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

Host Disconnects from vCenter in a vCloud Director Environment

James Bowling — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 19:10:17 +0000

So I ran into an issue the other day regarding host disconnects within vCenter in a vCD environment. SSH’d into the host and noticed right off the bat that vmkernel.log was showing the following error:

WARNING: VisorFSObj: 893: Cannot create file tmp:/current.png5557 for process vmx-mks:Cell Profiler x64 (b9d6aa64-d789-4954-bde9-f2875406c159) because the visorfs inode table is full. 2012-10-05T12:38:49.808Z cpu27:6014573)WARNING: VisorFSObj: 893: Cannot create file /etc/vmware/esx.conf.LOCK for process esxcfg-advcfg because the visorfs inode table is full.

And in hostd.log I saw this:

WARNING: VisorFSObj: 893: Cannot create file /etc/vmware/esx.conf.LOCK for process hostd because the visorfs inode table is full.

It is obvious through those errors what the issue is. Once you come to that conclusion you will need to do some checking around. The first thing I did was look in /tmp. Low and behold my ls -l command showed me an ever scrolling list of current.png[1-9]*. Thousands upon thousands of these were there. For those of you not aware of what these are, they are the screencaps you would see in the vCloud Director Portal of your VMs. The first thing one would think to try is to remove all of these with “rm -f current.png*”. WHOOPS! That won’t work in this case because the “argument list is too long”. The way to get around this error is to do one of the following:

1 2	cd /tmp for i in `seq 1 9`;do rm -f current.png[$i]*;done

1 2	cd /tmp find . \| grep current \| xargs rm -f

This will remove the current.png files, releasing the inodes. If you watch the logs (hostd, vmkernel) you will see that everything starts to process again. After a few minutes it will reconnect to vCenter again. Enjoy!

UPDATE: After I did some research on this I found that there is a KB Article regarding this (KB #2031839).

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

Can’t Remove vApp in vCD – Pending State

James Bowling — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:32:43 +0000

So I have run into a few issues where trying to delete a vApp with Partially Powered Off VMs live inside the vApp. It seems to place the vApp and VM into a Pending state in vCloud Director. When you attempt to run the delete again it says that you need to stop the VM first. In your eyes you thought the VM was stopped but vCD seems to think otherwise. You check in vCenter and see the VM is powered off so what now?

DISCLAIMER: THIS WAS DONE IN A LAB ENVIRONMENT! DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS IN PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE PROPER PRECAUTIONS! IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH DATABASE WORK THEN PLEASE STOP NOW!

Ok, sorry for yelling but I can’t stress this enough! Make sure you have a backup of your vCD database before doing anything related to modifying the database directly. Here are some, what I consider, best practice tips for doing vCD database work:

- Shutdown the vCD cells
- Backup the vCD database

Once you have completed the above steps open your favorite database UI or go straight to the command line. I will not go into the specifics on how to do this as I just don’t want to have that on my conscience if you mess something up! When you are in the database you will want to find the VM in the vCD VM table. You can search for it using the UUID from the error in the vCD interface. You will notice that the row reports that the status is DELETING_CONTENTS. You will want to change this to have a status of RESOLVED.

Next, we need to find the vApp in the VM_CONTAINER table in the vCD database. You can follow the same steps as above to find it by using the UUID of the vApp, which you can grab from the error as well. Once found, you will see that it shows a status of DELETING_CONTENTS as well. This will need to be modified to RESOLVED. When you have completed this and committed the changes you need to refresh your view in the vCD interface. You will see that the status is no longer Pending. Go into the vApp and you will probably see the VM is Partially Powered Off. Go ahead and right-click the VM and Power Off. It should power off clean now. Go to the vApp and shut the vApp down, this to should complete successfully. Finally, go ahead and right-click the vApp and delete!

Yay! If things worked out for you then awesome…if not, please open a case with VMware regarding your issue. As stated in the disclaimer, be careful with this and remember that your mileage will vary! Hope this helps!

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

Multi-Site vCenter Server Appliance Deployment

James Bowling — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:00:54 +0000

When sitting around today thinking about the grand scheme of things for my future state architecture, I was presented with a question from a co-worker about linked-mode.

Does the new 5.1 stuff allow for linked-mode in the appliance?

Knowing the short answer was easy, but explaining how it could be done now with SSO without “linked-mode” spawned a test in my home lab. The test is to have more than one vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) attached and manageable through the 5.1 vSphere Web Client. In short, the answer is yes, it can be done. Here is how:

You will first need to deploy another VCSA somewhere, in my case it was in my lab where my other VCSA was deployed. Once the deployment of the OVF is done you will want to login to the VAMI by going to https://:5480. Your initial login is, of course, root and the password is vmware.

Once logged in you will be presented with the setup wizard. Accept the wonderful EULA then select custom configuration.

Set your database to either Oracle or embedded based on your design. When presented with the SSO settings select external and enter the corresponding information as requested.

Make sure that you check the Trust SHA-1 thumbprint or the registration of the VCSA with your other VCSA/VC will fail.

Reboot the new VCSA, once all of the services start up you will be able to manage this in the vSphere Web Client…well, at least if you login as root into the webUI. How do you fix this? Easy, the same way you adjust permissions within vCenter. Login to the webUI as root and go to the vCenter Inventory List where you will see all of the vCenter Servers. Select the one you just added and click on Manage in the main screen…set permissions for your ESX Admins group or whatever group you may use…VIOLA! You now have the ability to manage multi-site vCenter Server Appliances. AWESOME!

Hopefully this helps you set this up and if you have any questions/comments/concerns/rants then please feel free to post them in the comments!

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

vCloud Director SAML/SSO FAIL OMG

James Bowling — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 14:15:33 +0000

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk! Be smart and contact VMware GSS if this is a production environment! This was in my lab so your mileage may vary!

So like many others I deployed vCloud Suite 5.1 into my home lab…all things were perfect until I decided to play with vCD and SSO. SSO has had quite a stream of people complaining about it and also those saying how great it is. As of right now, my personal take on it is that I am indifferent. Anyway, that is not the point of this quick post…the point is:

“ I BROKE MY VCD LOGINS!!!

So I was receiving a crazy 500 error after attempting login through the vSphere Web Client to vCD. For those of you not in the know about how to do this, check out the vCloud Director Admin Guide on page 127, “Configure vCloud Director to use vCenter Single Sign On“. Anywho, after attempting the configuration, which mind you is relatively simple, I somehow managed to bork the configuration. This resulted in a 500 Internal Server Error exclaiming: Incoming SAML message is invalid. One would think, “No worries, I will just disable SAML/SSO in the administration portal.”

“ OMG WTF!!!! I can’t get into the portal to make the change!

After a cry for help on Twitter late at night with nobody to respond, I decided this morning to dig into the Oracle database. While looking through I see a table called IDENTITY_PROVIDER…looks like I may have found a place to disable the SAML/SSO authentication method. VIOLA! I did find it! Now to change it…to do you will want to:

Make sure you have a backup of your database. (I did this in my lab! Use at your own risk on ANY environment!)
Connect to the Oracle DB.
Run the following SQL: UPDATE VCLOUD.IDENTITY_PROVIDER SET IS_ENABLED = 0 WHERE PROVIDER_TYPE = ‘SAML’;
Attempt to log back into vCD.

If all goes well, you should be back into vCD! If you go to Administration->Federation you should see that Use vSphere Single Sign-On is no longer checked! I am not sure that this is the proper method but it worked for me and I have not had any weird issues since making the change. Hope this helps!

UPDATE: Thanks to Luke (@ThepHuck) for doing this on Microsoft SQL. Here is the script:

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UPDATE [vcloud].[dbo].[identity_provider]
SET [is_enabled] = '0'
WHERE provider_type = 'SAML'
GO

UPDATE: Thanks to Mathew Lodge (@mathewlodge) you can just add login.jsp to the URL to gain local login access like so: http://vcloud.vsential.lab/cloud/login.jsp

This article was originally posted on vSential - virtualization in the real world. Visit the site for more information on virtualization and related technologies.

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