VxRAIL – 4.7 Install Notes

Note: this is an example for reference only please use the VxRail installation procedures provided by Dell EMC.

Prerequisites for installation include:

Create all relevant ESXi, VC and VxRAIL manager DNS entries on AD/DNS server.
Verify the customer DNS server can resolve the following components, test both forward and reverse lookups using nslookup:
- ESXi Mgmt
- VxRail Manager
- vCenter
- PSC
- LogInsight
- SRS Gateway
Ping all the above components in order to rule out any duplicate IP address conflicts.
Verify NTP is working correctly, the following are some useful links: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1035833 https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1003736
- Ensure date is in sync:
  - ESXi set date and time:
    - #esxcli system time get
    - esxcli system time set d|–day -H|–hour -m|–min -M|–month -s|–sec -y|–year
    - #esxcli system time set -d 19 -H 12 -m 30 -M 04 -y 2018
  - vCSA & PSC/VxRail Manager – view & set date and time:
    - # date
    - # date -s “19 APR 2018 12:30:00”
You can check the installed VxRail code on the ESXi host:
- esxcli software vib list | grep marvin
On the first host of the cluster set the VxRail Manager VM IP via IDRAC/DCUI (vxrail-idrac-esxi-shell-access-via-dcui):
- vxrail-primary --setup --vxrail-address 192.1.20.50 --vxrail-netmask 255.255.255.0 --vxrail-gateway 192.1.20.1 --no-roll-back --verbose
Check if VxRail Manager VM is running:
- esxcli vm process list
Enter the console (ALT+F1) and change the VLAN ID for the “VM Network” as per PEQ. e.g (VLAN 120):
- esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup list
- esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup set -p “VM Network” -v 120
Restart loudmouth on each ESXi host:
- /etc/init.d/loudmouth restart
Restart loudmouth on the VxRail Manager vm:
- systemctl restart vmware-loudmouth
Power cycle the VxRail Manager VM:
- vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
- vim-cmd vmsvc/power.shutdown vmid
- vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate vmid
- vim-cmd vmsvc/power.on vmid
- vim-cmd vmsvc/power.getstate vmid
Check VxRail Manager can discover hosts, login to the VxRail Manager via SSH and run the following commands:
- psql -U postgres marvin -c "select nodeposition,applianceid,primaryip from vxrailhost"
- /usr/lib/vmware-loudmouth/bin/loudmouthc query | grep -o "applianceID=..............." | sort
- /usr/lib/vmware-loudmouth/bin/loudmouthc query | egrep -o "EMC........-..|..............-..-.." | sed 's/ {"//g' | sort
- ‘G’ Series query by node position as PSNT is appliance based:
  - /usr/lib/vmware-loudmouth/bin/loudmouthc query | grep -o "nodePosition=...." | sort
  - /usr/lib/vmware-loudmouth/bin/loudmouthc query | grep -o "node-..........." | sort

Switch Validation

Confirm NIC’s are up:
- esxcli network nic list
Confirm the mac address of VxRail Manager is showing up on the switch. You can find the VxRail Manager mac address from the ESXi console:
- vim-cmd vmsvc/get.guest vmid | more
Ensure your switch ports are configured identically for all VxRail port connections.
Ensure each port has the required VLANs configured and trunked to all ports. In this example ESXi mgmt 120, vMotion 122, vSAN 123 and default Private Mgmt Network 3939.
In a dual switch configuration ensure that the VLANs are configured on the ISL/VPC peer link.
Sample DELL s4048 VLAN port config:

!
interface Vlan 120
ip address 192.1.20.1/24
tagged TenGigabitEthernet 1/1-1/32
no shutdown
!
interface Vlan 122
ip address 192.1.22.1/24
tagged TenGigabitEthernet 1/1-1/32
no shutdown
!
interface Vlan 123
ip address 192.1.23.1/24
tagged TenGigabitEthernet 1/1-1/32
no shutdown
!
interface Vlan 3939
no ip address
tagged TenGigabitEthernet 1/1-1/32
no shutdown
!

VxRail Manager Automatic Validation Steps

The following are the pre-validation steps that VxRail Manager automatically performs during the Validation process:

Validating the compatibility of Witness, Management, vSAN, and vSphere vMotion port groups.
Checking host is a witness node and validating its version.
Validating the compatibility of Management, vSAN, and vSphere vMotion port groups.
Checking each host has minimal number of NICs.
Checking VLAN configuration for Management, vSAN, vSphere vMotion, and VM networks.
Checking NIC configuration and link speed.
Verifying host network configurations.
Checking model numbers to verify proper support.
Verifying the discovered hosts are as expected.
Checking NTP server availability.
Validating time configurations of VxRail Manager, ESXi nodes, and vCenter Server.
Validating external DNS server host name records.
Validating DNS server configuration.
Performing VxRail Manager service account creation dry-run.
Performing VxRail Manager account creation dry-run.
Performing host accounts creation dry-run.
Checking compatibility of ESXi disk group types.
Searching for presence of requested VMware solutions.
Verifying disk slot configuration.
Searching for presence of requested partner solutions.
Validating ESXi host version compatibility.
Scanning network for IP usage.

Configure VxRail (Step-By-Step)

Browse to the VxRail Manager IP address which in this example is https://192.1.20.50, VxRail Welcome screen is displayed, click on ‘Get Started’ and accept the EULA:

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Check Logs

Monitor VxRail marvin.log:

cd /var/log/vmware/marvin/tomcat/logs

# cat marvin.log
# tail -f marvin.log
# tail -f marvin.log | grep ERROR
# tail -n 100 marvin.log
# more marvin.log

In terms of viewing Hooray equivalent in the logs the string is “Configuration complete!”:
#/var/log/vmware/marvin/tomcat/logs # cat marvin.log | grep “Configuration complete!”

View the json used for build:
cat /var/lib/vmware-marvin/config-journal.json

Installed json:
cat /var/lib/vmware-marvin/config.json

Runtime properties:
/var/lib/vmware-marvin/runtime.properties

PSQL
psql -U postgres mysticmanager -c “select * from virtual_infrastructure”|cat
psql -U postgres marvin -c “select applianceid,assettag,clusteraffinity,configurationstate,discovereddate,model,primaryip, hardwareprofile_id from vxrailhost;”|cat

ESXi Logs
cat /var/log/shell.log
tail -f /var/log/vmkernel.log