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”
- ESXi set date and time:
- Ensure date is in sync:
- 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:
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
#/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
ESXi Logs
cat /var/log/shell.log
tail -f /var/log/vmkernel.log