Installing vMA 5.5 and SSH

vSphere Management Assistant is a Suse Linux Server based Virtual Machines which provide command line interface to manage ESXi hosts and vCenter Server. It can be used to collect the logs and run scripts centrally without having you to login to each ESXi hosts individually. It’s a free appliance available in ovf format and installation is simple

1. Download and extract vMA zip file.
   
2. Connect to vCenter Server via Web-Client and select the option to "Deploy OVF Template" under "Actions". Point to the ovf file within the extracted folder.
   
3. Accept the EULA and proceed and give a name to vMA.
   
4. Select the appropriate Host, Datastore and Network. You have option to Select Static IP settings.
   
5. If you have selected Static option, then in next step it prompts for the static IP.
   
6. That brings up the last step to finish the setup and start the deployment.
7. After Deployment it didn't took the Static IP which I provided, but it took me to "Main Menu" to setup network configuration. For any reason if you miss any networking configuration and are not able to open the vMA configuration on browser then run the below command which brings the same Main Menu

 sudo /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net

8. After completing the network configuration when you exit, it will prompt for the old password for username "vi-admin", which is "vmware". After entering the default password, it prompts to change the password and until it find the new password complicate enough, will not let you proceed.
   
9. Now you are all set to manage your complete environment.

SSH:

In this version of vMA (5.5), ssh is already enabled. However, to disable ssh you may type the below command

 sudo vi /etc/hosts.allow

Go the bottom of the page and put # infront of

 #sshd: ALL : ALLOW

Save and exit.

vCenter Operations Manager 5.7.2 Installation and Configuration with vCenter Server Appliance 5.5

This blog demonstrate deploying vCenter Operations Manager 5.7.2 on vCenter Server Appliance 5.5. This is a vApp consisting of 2 Virtual Machines,  Analytics VM and UI VM. Analytic VM has Postgres DB and FSDB, it collects the data from vCenter Server. UI VM also has a Postgres DB and it’s the front end VM which provides the user interface. The installation is pretty straight forward. It is available as an ova file, which needs to be downloaded from Vmware website and deployed as summarized below

1. Connect to vCenter Server via Web Client and select "Deploy OVF Template" under actions tab.
   
2. Point to the vCenter Operations Manager ova file.
   
3. Review details and accept the EULA.
   
4. Give a name to the vCenter Operations Manager like vCOPs, short and easy to understand and select the folder or location for the deployment.
   
5. Select Configuration: Depending on the size of the environment choose this option. Small Configuration is suitable for deployments less than 1500 VMs.
   
6. Select Resource: Now select host which has good amount of resources (CPU/Memory) available.
   
7. Select Storage: It would be a thin provisioned disk, so select a Datastore accordingly.
   
8. Setup Network: Make sure appropriate Network Port Group is selected. Select IP Allocation as "Static Manual" if you are not using DHCP and update rest of the networking information.
   

          9.  Customize Template: If you had selected Static Allocation in the                      previous step, then you would get 2 alerts to update the Static IP                    for both the VMs i.e., UI and Analytics VM.

10. Now review all the information provided and click on finish to deploy both the VMs.
    
11. This is how both the VMs looks after the successful deployment. The deployment of both the VMs would take 20-30 mins.
    
12. To login into Analytics VM user the default username "root" and password "vmware" and to connect to vCenter Operations Manager Admin page (UI VM)use the default username "admin" and password "admin"
    
13. The successful login brings up the "Initial Setup Wizard", starting with "Virtual Appliance Details" and click on next and accept the warning and proceed
    
14. Reset both the passwords - root and admin account.
    
15. Specify the details of vCenter Server to be Monitored and I have skipped the collector user details.
    
16. Next step looks for the vCOPs plugin and linked vCenter Server and collects the information from them. In my case I do not have a linked vCenter Server at this moment.
    
17. That’s brings us to the last step of the configuration. After clicking on finish, it takes few minutes to register the vCenter Server.
    
18. Check the vCenter Server for new plugin. Also, open a browser and enter the vCOPs UI VM's IP Address.
    
19. Select any object on the left inventory and find the details on the right.
    

That was about installation and configuration of vCenter Operations Manager 5.7.2 registered with vCenter Server Appliance 5.5. I hope this post was helpful and there is lot more to do with vCOPs, I will update soon with few more posts on vCOPS.