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• A VM host is a physical computer running a VMware hypervisor
• A VCL computer entry must be added for each VM host (Manage Computers > Edit Computer Information)
• A VCL computer entry After the computer has been added to VCL, it is designated as a VM host by changing the computer state to vmhostinuse (Manage Computers > Computer Utilities)

VM

• A VM is a virtual machine managed by VCL
• A computer entry must be added to VCL for each VM (Manage Computers > Edit Computer Information)
• Each VM must be assigned to a VM host (Virtual Hosts > VM Hosts tab > Configure Host)
• VMs do not need to be created manually in VMware, VCL automatically creates and deletes VMs

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• A VM host profile contains several parameters defining parameters which describe how a VM host is configured so that VCL knows how to manage it
• Each VM host is assigned a VM host profile
• A VM host profile may be assigned to multiple VM hosts if they are configured identically
• VM host profiles may be added or modified via Virtual Hosts > VM Host Profiles tab

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• VMware Server 2.x
• VMware ESX 3.5 - 4.x
• VMware ESXi 4.x
• VMware ESXi 5.x

VM Host Management Options

 The VCL management node must be able to control the VM host and its the VMs running on it.  VMware provides several different ways of doing this.  VCL currently supports the following methods for remote VM host management:

• VMware vSphere SDK
• Execute vim-cmd commands remotely Use SSH to execute commands directly on the VM host via SSH(not officially supported by VMware)

The vSphere SDK can only be used if remote management is not restricted due to the VMware license being usedkey installed on the host.  This mainly affects hosts running the free version of ESXi.  Remote management using any of the methods supported by VMware is disabled restricted once a free license key is entered.

If remote management is restricted, the VM host can be managed if SSH is enabled on it.  VCL will execute vim-cmd and other commands on the VM host via SSH. 

How to enable SSH on the VM host:

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• Select the ESXi host
• Select the Configuration tab
• Select Security Profile under Software
• Click Properties
• Select Remote Tech Support (SSH)
• Click Options
• Select Start automatically
• Click Start
• Click OK

ESX

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5.

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In the case of ESX 4.1, SSH  is enabled as the default. Using the vSphere Client, you can confirm it5.0:

• Select the ESXi host
• Select the Configuration tab
• Select Security Profile under Software
• Click Properties
• Select SSH Server
• Click Options
• Confirm that Start automatically is selected
• Click OK

IMPORTANT:

• You need to log in as root and to enable PermitRootLogin by editing /etc/ssh/sshd_config: Tip

  vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

  Panel
  PermitRootLogin yes

• Then, you should restart sshd:

  Tip
  /etc/init.d/sshd restart

How to configure ESX/ESXi to use SSH identity key authentication:

SSH identity key authentication must be configured if the SSH /vim-cmd method is used to manage the VM host.

• Create an SSH key pair on the management node (or use a key you previously created):

  Tip
  ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /etc/vcl/vcl.key -N '' -b 1024 -C 'VCL root account'

• Log into the ESX host via SSH (password authentication should work) and create the directory:

  Tip
  ssh <ESXi host> 'mkdir /.ssh'

• Copy the public key to the ESXi host:
  ESXi 4.x:

  Tip
  scp /etc/vcl/vcl.key.pub <ESXi host>:/.ssh/authorized_keys

  ESXi 5.x:

  Tip
  scp /etc/vcl/vcl.key.pub <ESXi host>:/etc/ssh/keys-root/authorized_keys

• Test making an SSH connection using the key:

  Tip
  ssh -i /etc/vcl/vcl.key <ESXi host>

IMPORTANT: Under ESXi 4.x, the authorized_keys file is erased when the ESXi VM host is rebooted. Complete the following steps to make the authorized_keys file persistent:

Note: VCL will perform these steps automatically when the 1st reservation assigned to the host is processed.

• Create a compressed tarball file containing the /.ssh directory:

  Tip
  tar -C / -czf bootbank/vcl.tgz .ssh

• Edit the /bootbank/boot.cfg file and append ' --- vcl.tgz' to modules line as shown in the following example:

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  kernel=b.z kernelopt= modules=k.z — s.z — c.z — oem.tgz — license.tgz — m.z — state.tgz — vcl.tgz build=4.1.0-260247 updated=2 bootstate=0

  Tip
  Optionally you can run the following two commands: tar -C / -czf vcl.tgz .ssh BootModuleConfig.sh --add=vcl.tgz --verbose

VM

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• The Type parameter is not actually used with the VMware provisioning module included with VCL 2.2.  The name and version of the VMware product installed on the VM host is retrieved directly from the VM host
• The Type parameter only needs to be configured correctly if using the VMware provisioning module included with VCL 2.1 and earlier.

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• VCL has the ability to install a hypervisor image on bare-metal computers if xCAT is installed and configured (Note: xCAT is not required if VM hosts are installed manually)
• The image configured in the VM host profile is installed using xCAT when a computer's state is changed to vmhostinuse via Manage Computers > Computer Utilities
• Even if xCAT is not used, the OS of the image selected should match the OS installed on the VM host

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• Only applicable if the VM Disk parameter is set to localdis.  The Repository Path parameter is not used if the VM Disk parameter is set to networkdisk
• Image files are copied using SCP from the VM host to the Repository Path on the management node during the image capture process if the VM Disk parameter is set to localdisk
• If the requested image does not reside in the Data Store Path on the VM host when a reservation is made, it is copied from the Repository Path on the management node to the VM host using SCP

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• VCL creates a directory under the Data Store Path directory on the VM host for each image used on the VM host
• The image directories are named after the VCL images:
  <os name><image name><image revision>
• Example: vmwarewin7-enterprise156-v2

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• VCL creates a directory under the VM Path directory on the VM host for each VM it creates on the VM host
• The VM directories are named using a combination of the VM computer and image name:
  <computer name>_<image id>-<image revision>
• Example: vclvm-53_156-v0

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• For ESXi, the Virtual Switch parameters must match the Virtual Machine Port Group Network Labels configured in the vSphere Client
• For VMware Server 2.x, the Virtual Switch parameters must match the Network Names configured by running vmware-config.pl

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• localdisk - Select localdisk if separate storage is used by each VM host to store images and storage is available on the management node, configured by the Repository Path parameter
  • Images are copied from the VM host to the Repository Path on the management node during the image capture process
  • Images are copied from the Repository Path on the management node to the Data Store Path on the VM host during the image load process if the image does not already reside on the VM host
• network - Select network if the same network-based storage is used by all of the VM hosts
  • Images are not copied to the Repository Path on the management node when during the image capture process

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Host Profile Parameters

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