Part5. vSphere Web Client Installation and Configuration
vmWare introduces vSphere webclient in version 5.0 with limited features. In version 5.1 and now 5.5 vmWare is focusing mostly on vSphere web client. It seems old vSphere client will disappear in version 6. This is good as we don’t need to relay on different client versions.
1. Click on vSphere Web Client from installer launch pad
2. Follow the wizard , accept terms and conditions, choose appropriate installation location
3. Leave the ports as it
4. Enter the SSO detail and accept SSO certificate
5. Wait for installation to finish.
6. Now point your web browser to https://yourvSphere-vcenter:9443, use SSO login to login
7. Once logged in you can navigate around , Usually Left hand pane have main menu , and middle is for sub options or properties , right one is for recent task, work in progress and alarms etc.
8. Add some domain account
a. click on Home and then Administration
b. Navigate to “Single Sign On –> Users and Groups” , Click the Group tab in Center pane
c. Select “Administrators” and below that the add accounts (Ensure you have selected your domain and search for your desired users/group to delegate SSO admin rights to. Click Add and Ok.)
d. You will now see “Domain Admins” as part of the Administrator group in SSO.
9. Delegate some domain users/groups permissions within vCenter
a) Navigate back and select your vCenter server
b) Select the “Manage” tab followed by the “Permissions” sub tab
c) Click the “plus” (+) button to add permissions
d) Make sure you domain is selected and search for your users/groups to add
e) Once you selected and found user, Assign a role to your user/group such as the “Administrator” role and click Ok.
f) Now we made members of your Active Directory “Domain Admins” group administrators of both Single Sign On and vCenter Server (which includes clusters, hosts and VMs)
g) Now you can log out and log back in as a domain user domainusername that is part of the domain admins group.
Part6. Creating a Datacenter, HA/DRS Cluster and Adding a Host
- Create a datacenter
- Create a HA and DRS cluster
- Add an ESX/ESXi host
1. Login to the vSphere Web Client and navigate to your vCenter within the left inventory.
2. Select the Action drop down menue and click “New Datacenter” to create datacentre object with appropriate name
3. Next we need a cluster within our datacentre so we can add hosts into a HA DRS cluster, Click action and select “New Cluster”
4. Give Cluster a name and “Turn ON” DRS and “Turn ON” vSphere HA
5. Now we have our HA/DRS cluster we want to add some ESXi servers (hosts) to the cluster by clicking Actions and “Add Host”
6. Enter the FQDN of your ESXi server you want to add (not the IP address), enter the username (root) and password for your ESXi server. Click Next.
7. Accept Cert, check detail and assign Licence key for the ESXi server (vSphere)
8. Choose to enable lockdown mode (default is to leave it disabled)
Note: If you enable lockdown mode you cannot manage the host directly if vCenter is unavailable. But you can disable lockdown if you can get on the console of the ESXi Server (aka DCUI)
9. Any VMs on the host can be either added to the root resource pool or placed into a new one for this this hosts resource pools and VMs.
10. After a couple of minutes the host will be successfully added to the HA/DRS cluster and you can create VMs at the host or the cluster level.