OpenQRM Enterprise VMware vSphere How-To

This How-To explains the setup process of VMware vSphere.

Requirements

• One (or more) physical Server
• At least 1 GB of Memory
• At least 100 GB of Diskspace
• VT (Virtualization Technology) enabled in the Systems BIOS so that the openQRM Server can run Virtual Machines later
• Minimal Debian installation on a physical server

NOTE:

For this How-To, we assume you have successfully installed openQRM and have at least referenced our Cloud Computing with openQRM on Debian How-To before. If not, it is highly suggested to complete both before continuing.

1. Discover vSphere Server

Navigate to the Plugin Manager in your openQRM Interface. Install and Start the 'vmware-vsphere' plugin.

Install and Start VMware plugin

Go to Virtualisation => VMware vSphere => Discovery and click on 'Discover vSphere Hosts'. You can also add the vSphere servers in other networks manually by clicking 'Manual Add vSphere Hosts'.

Discover vSphere Hosts

Once it's done searching, you should see your VMware vSphere Server listed, click on 'Add'

Server has been discovered

Confirm vSphere Server details and click 'submit'

Confirm credentials

2. Create New Datacentre

After the vSphere server has been added, go to Virtualisation => VMware vSphere => Hosts. Click on 'Datacentre' on the vSphere Server

Create a Datacentre

Afterwards, click on 'Add New Datacentre'

Add New Datacentre

Name your Datacentre

Name the Datacentre

Once you return to the Datacentre Overview, click on 'Add Host to Datacentre'. You will be prompted to enter the credentials of your VMWare ESX Host.

NOTE: Using a Cluster of VMware ESX Hosts requires a valid DRS licence and a pre-created resource-pool

Enter credentials

3. Creating Virtual Machines

Click on 'Hosts' and click on 'VMS'

Click on 'VMS'

Click 'Add Local VM'

Add New VM

Enter the details of the VM

Enter details

Provide a datastore path to an installation ISO image.

NOTE: In the beta version, the browse button is not yet implemented.

Path for ISO image

NOTE: Creating the VM also creates a new Server for the VM

Navigate back to 'Hosts' and click on 'VMS'

Click on 'VMS'

Click on 'Start' to Activate the VMs

Start the created VM

Check the box and click 'Submit'

Click 'Submit'

Once you return to the overview, click on 'NoVNC' to Access the VM Console

Click 'NOVNC'

When prompted to, login to the VM with your credentials and click 'connect'.

Login to VM

Install an OS on the VM (in this case, Ubuntu)

Install OS

Once the OS has completed installing, navigate through the Help menu to 'Local-Server for Local Virtual Machines' Follow the instructions.

Install 'openqrm-local-vm-client' on the VM

Once that's complete, return to the Virtual Machines Overview and stop the VM

Stop the VM

Go to Cloud => Configuration => Images and click 'Update' on the VM

Update the VM

Select 'Everybody' and click 'Submit'

Select 'Everybody'

Now go to Cloud => Configuration => Products and add a new 'vSphere VM (localboot)' Cloud Product

Add new Product

Now go to Cloud => Configuration => Hostpools and update the VMware vSphere Server.

Update it's assignment to the 'Admin' group.

Update to 'Admin' group

5. Activating VMware vSphere Server

Login to the openQRM Cloud Portal and create a new VMware vSphere VM instance

Create new instance

After the instance is created, start it

Cloud instance staring

openQRM will fully automatically clone the VM and it's image for the Cloud request.

openQRM automatically clones

Once the vSphere Cloud instance is fully active, click on 'NoVNC'

Click on 'noVNC'

You can now access the VM through the VNC VM console access for the Cloud end-user.

Note:

In most cases the VMware ESX Hosts using self-signed SSL certificates. While this still provides an encrypted data transfer latest versions of programming languages (e.g. Python) may „not like“ the self-signed SSL certificate because of security concerns.

This is general issue which causes several function/API calls fail.

To check if your installation is working properly please run root on openQRM:

pip install pyvmomi --upgrade

cd /usr/share/openqrm/plugins/vmware-vsphere/bin/python/

./vmlist.py -s (vsphere-ip-address) -o 443 -u (username) -p (password)

If the last command produces an error instead of a list-output the Python vSphere API (pyvmomi) is not working correctly!

To fix this please find and edit „adapters.py“ (on a Ubuntu System its at /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/adapters.py). In this file please find the „def cert_verify“ function function and insert verify = None as the first statement in this function. After that please try the „vmlist“ command again. It should work fine now.