VCF Installer on Nested ESXi

As-built

I tried to install the VCF-installer OVA on Proxmox directly, but I kept running into issues, so I deployed it directly onto the nested ESXi servers.

ESXi-01

I’ve added temporary storage onto ESXi-01 and then deployed vcf-installer onto it.

Additional storage

Stop the Proxmox VM 101

# From Proxmox, stop the server 
qm stop 101

Add the 100GB disk

qm set 101 --sata3 local-lvm:100,ssd=1

# Verify
# qm config 101 | grep sata                                
sata0: local-lvm:vm-101-disk-0,size=80G,ssd=1                            
sata1: vmstore2-vsan:vm-101-disk-0,size=200G,ssd=1                       
sata2: vmstore2-vsan:vm-101-disk-1,size=50G,ssd=1                        
sata3: local-lvm:vm-101-disk-1,size=100G,ssd=1

Start ESXi-01

qm start 101

Create VMFS datastore

Access the ESXi-01 via https://192.168.200.21/ui

Goto Storage and you will be able to see it.

Click on New Datastore

Give it a name

Select the new drive

Use full disk

Check

And click on Finish

Verification

`vcf-installer` OVA deployment

From ESXi-01, click on Create/Register VM

Deploy from OVF/OVA

Give it a name and select select the file

Select the storage

Agree on the licensing

Afterwards select the VM network and provisioning type

Fill in the details

Review

Ensure you scroll down and check everything.

Do not refresh the UI. Tho you can see the progress here.

Since its nested virtualization, it might take some time.

Starting `vcf-installer` VM

Goto the console and power on the VM

Check connectivity

# ping 192.168.200.49                                    
PING 192.168.200.49 (192.168.200.49) 56(84) bytes of data.               
64 bytes from 192.168.200.49: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.636 ms


# Check DNS 
dig vcf-installer.lab.fiveorange.net +short             
192.168.200.49