---
title: vCenter Server Installation and Setup
url: https://www.vmware.com/docs/vsphere-vcenter-802-installation-guide
---
# vCenter Server Installation and Setup
You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware by Broadcom website at: [https://docs.vmware.com/](https://docs.vmware.com/)
Contents
- About vCenter Server Installation and Setup 5
- 1 Introduction to vSphere Installation and Setup 6
- How to Install and Set Up vSphere 6
- vCenter Server Components and Services 8
- What is vCenter Server Appliance 11
- Understanding vSphere Domains and Domain Names 11
- vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode 12
- vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode for vCenter Server Appliance 12
- Joining a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode Domain 13
- 2 Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance 14
- System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance 15
- Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance 16
- Storage Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance 16
- Software Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance 17
- Required Ports for vCenter Server 17
- DNS Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance 18
- vSphere Client Software Requirements 18
- Preparing for Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance 19
- System Requirements for the vCenter Server Installer 19
- Download and Mount the vCenter Server Installer 20
- Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network 21
- Synchronizing the Client and Server System Clock 22
- Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance 23
- GUI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance 24
- Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance 25
- Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance by Using the GUI 28
- Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a vCenter Server Appliance 29
- Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance 32
- CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance 34
- Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment 34
- JSON Templates for CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance 35
- Deployment Configuration Parameters 36
- Syntax of the CLI Deployment Command 46
- Deploy a vCenter Server Appliance by Using the CLI 48
- Deploy Multiple vCenter Server Appliances Using the CLI 49
- 3 File-Based Backup and Restore of vCenter Server 51
- Considerations and Limitations for File-Based Backup and Restore 51
- Schedule a File-Based Backup 55
- Manually Back Up vCenter Server by Using the vCenter Server Management Interface 57
- Restore vCenter Server from a File-Based Backup 58
- Stage 1 - Deploy a New Appliance 60
- Stage 2 - Transfer Data to the Newly Deployed Appliance 63
- 4 Image-Based Backup and Restore of a vCenter Server Environment 65
- Considerations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup and Restore 65
- Restore a vCenter Server Image-based Environment 68
- Restore a vCenter Server Instance 70
- Restore a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode Environment 70
- 5 After You Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance 72
- Log in to Your vCenter Server 72
- Install the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in 73
- Repoint vCenter Server to Another vCenter Server in a Different Domain 74
- Repoint a Single vCenter Server Node to an Existing Domain without a Replication Partner 75
- Repoint a vCenter Server Node to an Existing Domain with a Replication Partner 77
- Repoint a vCenter Server Node to a New Domain 79
- Syntax of the Domain Repoint Command 80
- Understanding Tagging and Authorization Conflicts 81
- vCenter Server Domain Repoint License Considerations 86
- 6 Troubleshooting vCenter Server Installation or Deployment 88
- Collecting Logs for Troubleshooting a vCenter Server Installation or Upgrade 88
- Retrieve Installation Logs Manually 88
- Collect Deployment Log Files for the vCenter Server Appliance 89
- Export a vCenter Server Support Bundle for Troubleshooting 89
## About vCenter Server Installation and Setup
vCenter Server Installation and Setup describes how to deploy the VMware vCenter Server® appliance.
At VMware, we value inclusion. To foster this principle within our customer, partner, and internal community, we create content using inclusive language.
### Intended Audience
vCenter Server Installation and Setup is for anyone who must install and configure VMware vSphere®. These topics are for experienced Microsoft Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with virtual machine technology and data center operations.
## Introduction to vSphere Installation and Setup
vSphere 8.0 provides various options for installation and setup. To ensure a successful vSphere deployment, you should understand the installation and setup options, and the sequence of tasks.
The two core components of vSphere are ESXi and vCenter Server. ESXi is the virtualization platform on which you can create and run virtual machines and virtual appliances. vCenter Server is a service that acts as a central administrator for ESXi hosts connected in a network. vCenter Server lets you pool and manage the resources of multiple hosts.
You deploy the vCenter Server appliance, a preconfigured virtual machine optimized for running vCenter Server and the vCenter Server components. You can deploy the vCenter Server appliance on ESXi hosts or on vCenter Server instances.
For detailed information about the ESXi installation process, see VMware ESXi Installation and Setup.
Read the following topics next:
- How to Install and Set Up vSphere
- vCenter Server Components and Services
- What is vCenter Server Appliance
- Understanding vSphere Domains and Domain Names
- vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode
### How to Install and Set Up vSphere
vSphere is a sophisticated product with multiple components to install and set up. To ensure a successful vSphere deployment, understand the sequence of tasks required.
Installing vSphere includes the following tasks:
1. Read the vSphere release notes.
2. Install ESXi.
Note: See VMware ESXi Installation and Setup for detailed information about the ESXi installation process.
3. Configure the ESXi boot and network settings, the direct console, and other settings. See VMware ESXi Installation and Setup for information.
4. Consider setting up a syslog server for remote logging, to ensure sufficient disk storage for log files. Setting up logging on a remote host is especially important for hosts with limited local storage. See VMware ESXi Installation and Setup.
## Install vCenter Server
You can deploy the vCenter Server appliance on an ESXi host or vCenter Server instance. You can deploy or install multiple vCenter Server instances connected in Enhanced Linked Mode configuration by registering them to a common Single Sign-On domain.
1. Review the topics in System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and verify that your system meets the hardware and software requirements for deploying the appliance.
2. Determine the deployment method to use. You can use the GUI method to deploy the appliance interactively. Alternatively, you can use the CLI method to perform a silent deployment of the appliance. See GUI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance and CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance.
3. Use the topic Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance to create a worksheet with the information you need for the GUI deployment, or use the topic Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment to create your JSON templates for the CLI deployment.
4. Deploy the appliance.
5. Connect to vCenter Server from the vSphere Client. See Chapter 5 After You Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance.
6. Configure the vCenter Server instance. See vCenter Server Configuration and vCenter Server and Host Management.
## vCenter Server Components and Services
vCenter Server provides a centralized platform for management, operation, resource provisioning, and performance evaluation of virtual machines and hosts. When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, vCenter Server, the vCenter Server components, and the authentication services are deployed on the same system.
The following components are included in the vCenter Server appliance deployments:
- The authentication services contain vCenter Single Sign-On, License service, Lookup Service, and VMware Certificate Authority.
- The vCenter Server group of services contains vCenter Server, vSphere Client, vSphere Auto Deploy, and vSphere ESXi Dump Collector. The vCenter Server appliance also contains the VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Extension service and the VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager.
## What Happened to the Platform Services Controller
Beginning in vSphere 7.0, deploying a new vCenter Server or upgrading to vCenter Server 7.0 requires the use of the vCenter Server appliance, a preconfigured virtual machine optimized for running vCenter Server. The new vCenter Server contains all Platform Services Controller services, preserving the functionality and workflows, including authentication, certificate management, tags, and licensing. It is no longer necessary nor possible to deploy and use an external Platform Services Controller. All Platform Services Controller services are consolidated into vCenter Server, and deployment and administration are simplified.
As these services are now part of vCenter Server, they are no longer described as a part of Platform Services Controller. In vSphere 7.0, the vSphere Authentication publication replaces the Platform Services Controller Administration publication. The new publication contains complete information about authentication and certificate management. For information about upgrading or migrating from vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 deployments using an existing external Platform Services Controller to vSphere 7.0 using vCenter Server appliance, see the vSphere Upgrade documentation.
## Authentication Services
### vCenter Single Sign-On
The vCenter Single Sign-On authentication service provides secure authentication services to the vSphere software components. By using vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere components communicate with each other through a secure token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring each component to authenticate a user separately with a directory service like Active Directory.
vCenter Single Sign-On can authenticate users through:
- External identity provider federation
You can configure vCenter Server for an external identity provider using federated authentication. In such a configuration, you replace vCenter Server as the identity provider. Currently, vSphere supports Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) as the external identity provider. In this configuration, AD FS interacts with the identity sources on behalf of vCenter Server.
- vCenter Server built-in identity provider
vCenter Server includes a built-in identity provider. By default, vCenter Server uses the vsphere.local domain as the identity source (but you can change it during installation). You can configure the vCenter Server built-in identity provider to use Active Directory (AD) as its identity source using LDAP/S, OpenLDAP/S, and Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA). Such configurations allow customers to log in to vCenter Server using their AD accounts.
Authenticated users can then be assigned registered solution-based permissions or roles within a vSphere environment.
vCenter Single Sign-On is required with vCenter Server.
### vSphere License Service
The vSphere License service provides common license inventory and management capabilities to all vCenter Server systems within the Single Sign-On domain.
### VMware Certificate Authority
VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA) provisions each ESXi host with a signed certificate that has VMCA as the root certificate authority, by default. Provisioning occurs when the ESXi host is added to vCenter Server explicitly or as part of the ESXi host installation process. All ESXi certificates are stored locally on the host.
For information about all authentication services and capabilities, see vSphere Authentication.
## Services Installed with vCenter Server
These additional components are installed silently when you install vCenter Server. The components cannot be installed separately as they do not have their own installers.
- **PostgreSQL**
A bundled version of the VMware distribution of PostgreSQL database for vSphere and vCloud Hybrid Services.
- **vSphere Client**
The HTML5-based user interface that lets you connect to vCenter Server instances by using a Web browser. This vSphere Client replaces the Flex-based vSphere Web Client from vSphere 7.0.
- **vSphere ESXi Dump Collector**
The vCenter Server support tool. You can configure ESXi to save the VMkernel memory to a network server, rather than to a disk, when the system encounters a critical failure. The vSphere ESXi Dump Collector collects such memory dumps over the network.
- **vSphere Auto Deploy**
The vCenter Server support tool that can provision hundreds of physical hosts with ESXi software. You can specify the image to deploy and the hosts to provision with the image. Optionally, you can specify host profiles to apply to the hosts, and a vCenter Server location (folder or cluster) for each host.
- **VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager**
vSphere Lifecycle Manager enables centralized, automated patch and version management for VMware vSphere and offers support for VMware ESXi hosts, virtual machines, and virtual appliances.
## What is vCenter Server Appliance
The vCenter Server appliance is a preconfigured virtual machine that is optimized for running vCenter Server and the associated services. The vCenter Server appliance package contains the following software:
- Photon OS® 3.0
- The vSphere authentication services
- PostgreSQL
- VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Extension
- VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager
Version 8.0 of vCenter Server is deployed with virtual hardware version 10, which supports 64 virtual CPUs per virtual machine in ESXi. During the deployment, you can choose the vCenter Server appliance size for your vSphere environment size and the storage size for your database requirements.
vCenter Server uses the VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Extension service. An external vSphere Lifecycle Manager instance on Windows is no longer required for vSphere centralized automated patch and version management. For information about the vCenter Server see vCenter Server Components and Services.
vCenter Server supports high availability. For information about configuring vCenter Server in a vCenter High Availability cluster, see vSphere Availability.
vCenter Server supports file-based backup and restore. For information backing up and restoring, see Chapter 3 File-Based Backup and Restore of vCenter Server.
For information about the vCenter Server maximums, see VMware Configuration Maximums.
## Understanding vSphere Domains and Domain Names
Each vCenter Server is associated with a vCenter Single Sign-On domain. The domain name defaults to vsphere.local, but you can change it during deployment. The domain determines the local authentication space.
### vCenter Single Sign-On Domain
When you deploy a vCenter Server appliance, you are prompted to create a vCenter Single Sign-On domain or join an existing domain. The domain name is used by the VMware Directory Service (vmdir) for all Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) internal structuring. You can give your domain a unique name. To prevent authentication conflicts, use a name that is not used by OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, and other directory services.
After you specify the name of your domain, you can add users and groups. You can add an Active Directory or LDAP identity source and allow the users and groups in that identity source to authenticate. You can also add vCenter Server instances, or other VMware products, such as VMware Aria Operations, to the domain.
## vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode
vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode allows you to log in to any single instance of vCenter Server and view and manage the inventories of all the vCenter Server systems in the group. You can join up to 15 vCenter Server appliance deployments with vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode in a single vSphere Single Sign-On domain. You can create a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode group during the deployment of vCenter Server appliance.
You can also join a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode group by moving, or repointing, a vCenter Server from one vSphere domain to another existing domain. See Repoint vCenter Server to Another vCenter Server in a Different Domain for information on repointing a vCenter Server node.
### vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode for vCenter Server Appliance
When you enable Enhanced Linked Mode for vCenter Server appliance deployments, you can connect multiple vCenter Server appliance deployments together to form a domain. Other features include:
- A simplified backup and restore process. See Chapter 3 File-Based Backup and Restore of vCenter Server for more information.
- A simplified HA process, removing the need for load balancers.
- Up to 15 vCenter Server appliance deployments can be linked together using enhanced linked mode and displayed in a single inventory view.
- For a vCenter High Availability (vCenter HA) cluster, three nodes are considered one logical vCenter Server node. See "vCenter Architecture Overview" in vSphere Availability for the vCenter HA architecture overview. A single vCenter Server standard license is needed for one vCenter HA cluster.
### Enhanced Linked Mode with Read Only Replication
If a vCenter High Availability (vCenter HA) instance is connected with another vCenter Server instance with enhanced linked mode and vCenter HA failover occurs to the passive node and is unable to communicate with its replication partner on the other vCenter Server node, the replica on the vCenter HA node enters read-only mode.
## Joining a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode Domain
You can join a vCenter Server appliance to another node during deployment of the vCenter Server appliance.
**Note:** You can also join a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode group by moving, or repointing, a vCenter Server from one vSphere domain to another existing domain. See Repoint vCenter Server to Another vCenter Server in a Different Domain for information on repointing a vCenter Server node.
For example, you can deploy two vCenter Server appliance systems and join the two nodes using vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode.
If you are deploying the vCenter Server appliance nodes with the UI Installer:
1. For Appliance 1, deploy the vCenter Server appliance as an instance on ESXi Host 1. Synchronize the time settings with ESXi Host 1.
2. For Appliance 2, deploy the vCenter Server appliance as an instance on ESXi Host 1 and configure the time settings so that Appliance 2 is synchronized with ESXi Host 1. In stage 2 you select to join the vCenter Single Sign-On server of the deployed appliance on Appliance 1. For specific instructions, see Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance.
If you are deploying the vCenter Server appliance nodes with the CLI:
1. Configure the JSON configuration template `embedded_vCSA_on_VC.json` (or `embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json`) for Appliance 1 as an instance on ESXi Host 1. See Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment for specific instructions on preparing the JSON configuration file.
2. Deploy Appliance 1 by running the `vcsa-cli-installer` command. See Deploy a vCenter Server Appliance by Using the CLI for instructions.
3. Configure the JSON configuration template `embedded_vCSA_replication_on_VC.json` (or `embedded_vCSA_replication_on_ESXi.json`) for Appliance 2 as an instance on ESXi Host 1. Enter the hostname of the first embedded node in the `replication_partner_hostname` field in the `sso` section.
4. Deploy Appliance 2 by running the `vcsa-cli-installer` command using the `embedded_vCSA_replication_on_VC.json` (or `embedded_vCSA_replication_on_ESXi.json`) file.
## Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance
You can deploy the vCenter Server appliance to manage your vSphere environment. You can deploy the vCenter Server appliance on an ESXi host 6.7 or later, or on an ESXi host or DRS cluster from the inventory of a vCenter Server instance 6.7 or later.
For information about the software included in the vCenter Server appliance 8.0, see What is vCenter Server Appliance. For information about the software and hardware requirements for deploying the vCenter Server appliance, see System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance.
The vCenter Server installer contains executable files both for GUI and CLI deployments.
- The GUI deployment is a two-stage process. The first stage is a deployment wizard that deploys the OVA file of the appliance on the target ESXi host or vCenter Server instance. After the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to the second stage of the process that sets up and starts the services of the newly deployed appliance.
- The CLI deployment method involves running a CLI command against a JSON file that you previously prepared. The CLI installer parses the configuration parameters and their values from the JSON file and generates an OVF Tool command that automatically deploys and sets up the appliance. The CLI deployment automatically runs both stage 1 then stage 2, with no user interaction required.
The vCenter Server appliance has the following default user names:
| User Name | Description |
|-----------|-------------|
| root | Use this user name to log in to the appliance operating system and the vCenter Server Management Interface. You set the password while deploying the virtual appliance. |
| administrator@your_domain_name | Use this user name for vCenter Single Sign-On login. You set the password while creating the vCenter Single Sign-On domain. You create a vCenter Single Sign-On domain during the deployment of a vCenter Server appliance in a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain. After you create a vCenter Single Sign-On domain, only the administrator@your_domain_name user has the privileges required to log in to vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter Server. |
The administrator@your_domain_name user can proceed as follows:
- Add an identity source in which additional users and groups are defined to vCenter Single Sign-On.
- Give permissions to the users and groups.
For information about adding identity sources and giving permissions to the users and groups, see vSphere Authentication. For information about upgrading and patching the vCenter Server appliance, see vSphere Upgrade. For information about configuring vCenter Server, see vCenter Server Configuration.
If you want to set up vCenter Server to use an IPv6 address version, use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or host name of the appliance. To set up an IPv4 address, the best practice is to use the FQDN or host name of the appliance, because the IP address can change if assigned by DHCP.
Read the following topics next:
- System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
- Preparing for Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance
- Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance
- GUI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance
- CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance
## System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
You can deploy the vCenter Server appliance on an ESXi host 6.7 or later, or on a vCenter Server instance 6.7 or later. Your system must also meet specific software and hardware requirements.
When you use Fully Qualified Domain Names, verify that the client machine from which you are deploying the appliance and the network on which you are deploying the appliance use the same DNS server.
Before you deploy the appliance, synchronize the clocks of the target server and all vCenter Server instances on the vSphere network. Unsynchronized clocks might result in authentication problems and can cause the installation to fail or prevent the appliance services from starting. See Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network.
### Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, you can select to deploy an appliance that is suitable for the size of your vSphere environment. The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the amount of memory for the appliance. The hardware requirements for a vCenter Server appliance depend on the size of your vSphere inventory.
| Number of vCPUs | Memory |
|------------------|--------|
| Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines) | 2 | 14 GB |
| Small environment (up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines) | 4 | 21 GB |
| Medium environment (up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines) | 8 | 30 GB |
| Large environment (up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines) | 16 | 39 GB |
| X-Large environment (up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines) | 24 | 58 GB |
> Note: If you want to add an ESXi host with more than 512 LUNs and 2,048 paths to the vCenter Server inventory, you must deploy a vCenter Server appliance for a large or x-large environment.
### Storage Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you deploy the appliance must meet minimum storage requirements. The required storage depends not only on the size of the vSphere environment and the storage size, but also on the disk provisioning mode. The storage requirements are different for each vSphere environment size and depend on your database size requirements.
| Default Storage Size | Large Storage Size | X-Large Storage Size |
|----------------------|-------------------|----------------------|
| Tiny environment (up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines) | 579 GB | 2019 GB | 4279 GB |
| Small environment (up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines) | 694 GB | 2044 GB | 4304 GB |
| Storage Size | Medium Environment (up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines) | Large Environment (up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines) | X-Large Environment (up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines) |
|----------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Default | 908 GB | 1358 GB | 2283 GB |
| Large | 2208 GB | 2258 GB | 2383 GB |
| X-Large | 4468 GB | 4518 GB | 4643 GB |
Note: The storage requirements include the requirements for the vSphere Lifecycle Manager that runs as a service in the vCenter Server appliance.
## Software Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
The VMware vCenter Server appliance can be deployed on ESXi 6.7 hosts or later, or on vCenter Server instances 6.7 or later. You can deploy the vCenter Server appliance using the GUI or CLI installer. You run the installer from a network client machine that you use to connect to the target server and deploy the appliance on the server. You can connect directly to an ESXi 6.7 host on which to deploy the appliance. You can also connect to a vCenter Server 6.7 instance to deploy the appliance on an ESXi host or DRS cluster that resides in the vCenter Server inventory. For information about the requirements for the network client machine, see System Requirements for the vCenter Server Installer.
## Required Ports for vCenter Server
The vCenter Server system must be able to send data to every managed host and receive data from the vSphere Client. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other through predetermined TCP and UDP ports.
vCenter Server is accessed through predetermined TCP and UDP ports. If you manage network components from outside a firewall, you might be required to reconfigure the firewall to allow access on the appropriate ports. For the list of all supported ports and protocols in vSphere, see the [VMware Ports and Protocols Tool™](https://ports.vmware.com).
During installation, if a port is in use or is blocked using a denylist, the vCenter Server installer displays an error message. You must use another port number to proceed with the installation. There are internal ports that are used only for inter-process communication.
VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated ports for data from vCenter Server. If a built-in firewall exists between any of these elements, the installer opens the ports during the installation or upgrade process. For custom firewalls, you must manually open the required ports. If you have a firewall between two managed hosts and you want to perform source or target activities, such as migration or cloning, you must configure a means for the managed hosts to receive data. To configure the vCenter Server system to use a different port to receive vSphere Client data, see the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.
## DNS Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, similar to any network server, you can assign a fixed IP address and an FQDN that is resolvable by a DNS server so that clients can reliably access the service.
When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance with a static IP address, you ensure that in case of system restart, the IP address of the appliance remains the same. Before you deploy the vCenter Server appliance with a static IP address, you must verify that this IP address has a valid internal domain name system (DNS) registration.
When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, the installation of the web server component that supports the vSphere Client fails if the installer cannot look up the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the appliance from its IP address. Reverse lookup is implemented using PTR records.
If you plan to use an FQDN for the appliance system name, you must verify that the FQDN is resolvable by a DNS server, by adding forward and reverse DNS A records. You can use the `nslookup` command to verify that the DNS reverse lookup service returns an FQDN when queried with the IP address and to verify that the FQDN is resolvable.
```bash
nslookup -nosearch -nodefname FQDN_or_IP_address
```
If you use DHCP instead of a static IP address for the vCenter Server appliance, verify that the appliance name is updated in the domain name service (DNS). If you can ping the appliance name, the name is updated in DNS. Ensure that the ESXi host management interface has a valid DNS resolution from the vCenter Server and all vSphere Client instances. Ensure that the vCenter Server has a valid DNS resolution from all ESXi hosts and vSphere Client.
## vSphere Client Software Requirements
Use of the vSphere Client requires a supported web browser.
### Supported Guest Operating Systems
- Windows 32-bit and 64-bit
- Mac OS
### Supported Browser Versions
- Google Chrome 89 or later
- Mozilla Firefox 80 or later
- Microsoft Edge 90 or later
Note: Later versions of these browsers are likely to work, but have not been tested.
## Preparing for Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance
Before you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, you must download the vCenter Server installer ISO file and mount it to a network virtual machine or physical server from which you want to perform the deployment. The machine from which you deploy the appliance must run on a Windows, Linux, or Mac operating system that meets the operating system requirements. See System Requirements for the vCenter Server Installer.
## System Requirements for the vCenter Server Installer
You can run the vCenter Server GUI or CLI installer from a network client machine that is running on a Windows, Linux, or Mac operating system of a supported version. To ensure optimal performance of the GUI and CLI installers, use a client machine that meets the minimum hardware requirements.
## System Requirements for the GUI and CLI Installers
**Table 2-1. System Requirements for the GUI and CLI Installers**
| Operating System | Supported Versions | Minimum Hardware Configuration for Optimal Performance |
|-------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Windows | Windows 10, 11, Windows 2016 x64 bit, Windows 2019 x64 bit, Windows 2022 x64 bit | 4 GB RAM, 2 CPU having 4 cores with 2.3 GHz, 32 GB hard disk, 1 NIC |
| Linux | SUSE 15, Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, 21.10 | 4 GB RAM, 1 CPU having 2 cores with 2.3 GHz, 16 GB hard disk, 1 NIC |
| Mac | macOS 10.15, 11, 12 | 8 GB RAM, 1 CPU having 4 cores with 2.4 GHz, 150 GB hard disk, 1 NIC |
*Note: The CLI installer requires 64-bit OS.*
*Note: For client machines that run on Mac 10.15 or later, concurrent GUI deployments of multiple appliances are unsupported. You must deploy the appliances in a sequence.*
*Note: Visual C++ redistributable libraries need to be installed to run the CLI installer on versions of Windows older than Windows 10. The Microsoft installers for these libraries are located in the `vcsa-cli-installer/win32/vcredist` directory.*
*Note: Deploying the vCenter Server appliance with the GUI requires a minimum resolution of 1024x768 to properly display. Lower resolutions can truncate the UI elements.*
## Download and Mount the vCenter Server Installer
VMware releases the vCenter Server appliance ISO image, which contains GUI and CLI installers for the vCenter Server appliance. With the GUI and CLI executable files that are included in the vCenter Server installer, you can:
- Deploy the vCenter Server appliance.
- Upgrade the vCenter Server appliance.
- Converge older versions of vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller to the current version of vCenter Server.
- Restore a vCenter Server appliance from a file-based backup.
### Prerequisites
- Create a Customer Connect account at [https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/](https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/).
- Verify that your client machine meets the system requirements for the vCenter Server installer. See System Requirements for the vCenter Server Installer.
### Procedure
1. Log in to VMware Customer Connect.
2. Navigate to Products and Accounts > All Products.
3. Find VMware vSphere and click View Download Components.
4. Select a VMware vSphere version from the Select Version drop-down.
5. Select a version of VMware vCenter Server and click GO TO DOWNLOADS.
6. Download the vCenter Server appliance ISO image.
7. Confirm that the md5sum is correct by using an MD5 checksum tool.
8. Mount the ISO image to the client machine from which you want to deploy, upgrade, migrate, or restore the appliance.
*Note: ISO mounting software that does not allow more than eight directory levels, for example, MagicISO Maker on Windows, is unsupported. For Linux OS and Mac OS, Archive Manager is unsupported. For Mac OS, you can use DiskImageMounter. For Ubuntu 14.04, you can use Disk Image Mounter. For SUSE 12 OS, you can use the terminal.*
```
$ sudo mkdir mount_dir
$ sudo mount -o loop VMware-vCSA-all-version_number-build_number.iso mount_dir
```
*Important: Due to a security change in MacOS Catalina, you must modify the security settings on your computer until the vCenter Server deployment completes. If you attempt to run the installer under MacOS Catalina without modifying the security settings, the vCenter Server installer reports the error: `ovftool cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified`. For more information, see KB 79416.*
### What to do next
Open the `readme.txt` file and review the information about the other files and directories in the vCenter Server appliance ISO image.
## Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network
Verify that all components on the vSphere network have their clocks synchronized. If the clocks on the physical machines in your vSphere network are not synchronized, SSL certificates and SAML tokens, which are time-sensitive, might not be recognized as valid in communications between network machines.
Unsynchronized clocks can result in authentication problems, which can cause the installation to fail or prevent the vCenter Server `vmware-vpxd` service from starting.
*Time inconsistencies in vSphere can cause the first boot of a component in your environment to fail at different services depending on where in the environment time is not accurate and when the time is synchronized. Problems most commonly occur when the target ESXi host for the destination vCenter Server is not synchronized with NTP or PTP. Similarly, issues can arise if the destination vCenter Server migrates to an ESXi host set to a different time due to fully automated DRS.*
To avoid time synchronization issues, ensure that the following is correct before installing, migrating, or upgrading a vCenter Server instance.
- The target ESXi host where the destination vCenter Server is to be deployed is synchronized to NTP or PTP.
- The ESXi host running the source vCenter Server is synchronized to NTP or PTP.
- When upgrading or migrating from vSphere 6.7 to vSphere 8.0, if the vCenter Server appliance is connected to an external Platform Services Controller, ensure the ESXi host running the external Platform Services Controller is synchronized to NTP or PTP.
- If you are upgrading or migrating from vSphere 6.7 to vSphere 8.0, verify that the source vCenter Server or vCenter Server appliance and external Platform Services Controller have the correct time.
Verify that any Windows host machine on which vCenter Server runs is synchronized with the Network Time Server (NTP) server. See the VMware knowledge base article at [https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1318](https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1318).
To synchronize ESXi clocks with an NTP or a PTP server, you can use the VMware Host Client. For information about editing the time configuration of an ESXi host, see the topic Edit the Time Configuration of an ESXi Host in the VMware Host Client in the vSphere Single Host Management - VMware Host Client documentation.
To learn how to change time synchronization settings for vCenter Server, see the topic Configure the System Time Zone and Time Synchronization Settings in the vCenter Server Configuration documentation.
To learn how to edit the time configuration for a host by using the vSphere Client, see the topic Editing the Time Configuration Settings of a Host in the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.
## Synchronizing the Client and Server System Clock
To establish a secure TLS connection to a vCenter Server (the server), the system where you are running the CLI installer (the client) must not have its system clock slower or faster than the server's system clock by an acceptable limit (tolerance).
*See Table 2-2. Client Clock Tolerance for specific values for each deployment scenario.*
*Note: The client clock values are applicable only for vCenter Server 6.7 and later.*
## Table 2-2. Client Clock Tolerance
| Deployment Scenario | Clock Tolerance | Connection Notes |
|---------------------|----------------|------------------|
| Linking one vCenter Server with another vCenter Server | When deploying the second vCenter Server, the clock tolerance for the client and the first vCenter Server must not exceed 10 minutes. | |
| Installing a vCenter Server appliance using a container vCenter Server with a *._on_vc.json template. | The maximum clock tolerance between the client and the container vCenter Server is 8 hours 20 minutes. | |
## Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance
To ensure a successful deployment of the vCenter Server appliance, you must perform some required tasks and pre-checks before running the installer.
### General Prerequisites
- Download and Mount the vCenter Server Installer.
### Target System Prerequisites
- Verify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance.
- If you want to deploy the appliance on an ESXi host, verify that the ESXi host is not in lockdown or maintenance mode and not part of a fully automated DRS cluster.
- If you want to deploy the appliance on a DRS cluster of the inventory of a vCenter Server instance, verify that the cluster contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
- If you plan to use NTP servers for time synchronization, verify that the NTP servers are running and that the time between the NTP servers and the target server on which you want to deploy the appliance is synchronized.
- If you want to deploy the appliance on a vSAN ESA cluster with vSAN ESA encryption, you must enable vSAN ESA encryption before installing vCenter Server. vSAN Express Storage Architecture is a next-generation architecture designed to get the most out of high-performance storage devices, resulting in greater performance and efficiency. You can enable vSAN ESA encryption through vSAN SDK or vSAN API.
### vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode Prerequisites
When deploying a new vCenter Server as part of an Enhanced Linked Mode deployment, create an image-based backup of the existing vCenter Server nodes in your environment. You can use the backup as a precaution in case there is a failure during the deployment process.
If the deployment fails, delete the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance, and restore the vCenter Server nodes from their respective image-based backups. You must restore all the nodes in the environment from their image-based backups. Failing to do so can cause the replication partners to be out of synchronization with the restored node.
- To learn more about creating vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode deployments, see vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode.
- To learn about image-based backups, see Chapter 4 Image-Based Backup and Restore of a vCenter Server Environment.
### Network Prerequisites
If you plan to assign a static IP address and an FQDN as a system name in the network settings of the appliance, verify that you have configured the forward and reverse DNS records for the IP address.
## GUI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance
You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive deployment of a vCenter Server appliance. When you perform the GUI deployment, you download the vCenter Server installer on a network client machine, run the deployment wizard from the client machine, and provide the inputs that are required for the appliance deployment and setup.
The GUI deployment process includes a series of two stages.
### Figure 2-1. Stage 1 - OVA Deployment
The first stage walks you through the deployment wizard to choose the deployment type and appliance settings. This stage completes the deployment of the OVA file on the target server with the deployment type and appliance settings that you provide.
As an alternative to performing the first stage of the deployment with the GUI installer, you can deploy the OVA file of the vCenter Server appliance by using the vSphere Client. After the OVA deployment, you must log in to the vCenter Server Management Interface of the newly deployed appliance to proceed with the second stage of the deployment process. See "Deploy an OVF or OVA Template" in vSphere Virtual Machine Administration for information about deploying an OVA file using the vSphere Client.
### Figure 2-2. Stage 2 - Appliance Setup
The second stage walks you through the setup wizard to configure the appliance time synchronization and vCenter Single Sign-On. This stage completes the initial setup and starts the services of the newly deployed appliance.
As an alternative to performing the second stage of the deployment with the GUI installer, you can log in to the vCenter Server Management Interface of the newly deployed appliance, `https://FQDN_or_IP_address:5480`.
## Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance
When you use the GUI method to deploy a vCenter Server appliance, the wizard prompts you for deployment and setup information. It is a best practice to keep a record of the values that you enter in case you must reinstall the product. You can use this worksheet to record the information that you need for deploying a vCenter Server appliance.
### Table 2-3. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process
| Required Information | Default | Your Entry |
|----------------------|---------|------------|
| FQDN or IP address of the target server on which you want to deploy the appliance. The target server can be either an ESXi host or a vCenter Server instance. | - | |
| HTTPS port of the target server | 443 | |
| User name with administrative privileges on the target server | - | If your target server is an ESXi host, use root. If your target server is a vCenter Server instance, use `user_name@your_domain_name`, for example, `administrator@vsphere.local`. |
| Password of the user with administrative privileges on the target server | - | |
| Data center from the vCenter Server inventory on which you want to deploy the appliance. Target server must be a vCenter Server instance. Optionally you can provide a data center folder. | - | |
| ESXi host or DRS cluster from the data center inventory on which you want to deploy the appliance | - | |
### Table 2-3. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process (continued)
| Required Information | Default | Your Entry |
|----------------------|---------|------------|
| VM name for the appliance | - | Must not contain a percent sign (%), backslash (\), or forward slash (/); must be no more than 80 characters in length. |
| Password for the root user of the appliance operating system | - | Must contain only lower ASCII characters without spaces; must be at least 8 characters, but no more than 20 characters in length; must contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, and one special character (for example, $, #, @, ., !). |
| Deployment size of the vCenter Server appliance for your vSphere environment. See Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance for information about the deployment sizes you can select. The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the amount of memory for the appliance. | Tiny | |
| Storage size of the vCenter Server appliance for your vSphere environment. The required storage depends not only on the size of the vSphere environment, but also on the disk provisioning mode. See Storage Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance. Increase the default storage size if you want a larger volume for SEAT data (stats, events, alarms, and tasks). | Default | |
| Name of the datastore on which you want to store the configuration files and virtual disks of the appliance. | - | Note: The installer displays a list of datastores that are accessible from your target server. |
| Activate or deactivate Thin Disk Mode | Deactivated | |
## Table 2-3. Required Information During Stage 1 of the GUI Deployment Process (continued)
| Required Information | Default | Your Entry |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|------------|------------|
| Name of the network to which to connect the appliance | - | |
| Note: The installer displays a drop-down menu with networks that depend on the network settings of your target server. If you are deploying the appliance directly on an ESXi host, non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are not supported and are not displayed in the drop-down menu. The network must be accessible from the client machine from which you perform the deployment. | | |
| IP version for the appliance address | IPv4 | |
| IP assignment for the appliance address | static | |
| FQDN | - | |
| For a static IP assignment vCenter Server uses FQDN or IP address as the system name. | | |
| IP address | - | |
| For IPv4 networks, you can use either a subnet mask or a network prefix. Subnet mask uses a dot decimal notation (for example, 255.255.255.0). An IPv4 network prefix is an integer between 0 and 32. For IPv6 networks, you must use a network prefix. An IPv6 network prefix is an integer between 0 and 128. | | |
| Default gateway | - | |
| DNS servers separated by commas | - | |
| System name (FQDN) | - | Only if you use DHCP with IPv4 and have a Dynamic DNS (DDNS) server available in your environment. |
## Table 2-4. Required Information During Stage 2 of the GUI Deployment Process
| Required Information | Default | Your Entry |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------|------------|
| Time synchronization settings | | |
| You can synchronize the time of the appliance either with the time of the ESXi host or with one or more NTP servers. If you want to use more than one NTP server, you must provide the IP addresses or FQDNs of the NTP servers as a comma-separated list. | Synchronize time with NTP servers | |
| Activate or deactivate SSH access | Deactivate | |
| Name for the new vCenter Single Sign-On domain | - | |
| For example, vsphere.local. | | |
| Password for the administrator account, administrator@your_domain_name n Must be at least 8 characters, but no more than 20 characters in length; must contain at least one uppercase letter; must contain at least one lowercase letter; must contain at least one number; must contain at least one special character, such as ampersand (&), hash key (#), and percent sign (%) | - | |
| Password of the vCenter Single Sign On administrator user for the domain | - | |
| Join or do not participate in the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) | For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program section in vCenter Server and Host Management. | Join the CEIP |
## Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance by Using the GUI
You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive deployment of a vCenter Server appliance. You must run the GUI deployment from a Windows, Linux, or Mac machine that is in the network on which you want to deploy the appliance.
### Figure 2-3. Deployment Workflow of a vCenter Server Appliance
- Start the deployment
- End of the deployment
- Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA file as a vCenter Server Appliance
- Stage 2 - Set up the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance
**Prerequisites**
- See Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance.
- See Required Information for Deploying a vCenter Server Appliance.
### Procedure
1. **Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a vCenter Server Appliance**
With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the vCenter Server installer, as a vCenter Server appliance.
2. **Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance**
When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set up and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance.
### Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File as a vCenter Server Appliance
With stage 1 of the deployment process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the vCenter Server installer, as a vCenter Server appliance.
### Procedure
1. In the vCenter Server installer, navigate to the `vcsa-ui-installer` directory, go to the subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.
- For Windows OS, go to the `win32` subdirectory, and run the `installer.exe` file.
- For Linux OS, go to the `lin64` subdirectory, and run the installer file.
- For Mac OS, go to the `mac` subdirectory, and run the `Installer.app` file.
2. On the Home page, click Install to start the deployment wizard.
3. Review the Introduction page to understand the deployment process and click Next.
4. Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next.
5. Connect to the target server on which you want to deploy the vCenter Server appliance.
**Option Steps**
You can connect to an ESXi host on which to deploy the appliance.
1. Enter the FQDN or IP address of the ESXi host.
2. Enter the HTTPS port of the ESXi host.
3. Enter the user name and password of a user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host, for example, the root user.
4. Click Next.
5. Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is installed on the target ESXi host, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.
You can connect to a vCenter Server instance and browse the inventory to select an ESXi host or DRS cluster on which to deploy the appliance.
1. Enter the FQDN or IP address of the vCenter Server instance.
2. Enter the HTTPS port of the vCenter Server instance.
3. Enter the user name and password of user with vCenter Single Sign-On administrative privileges on the vCenter Server instance, for example, the `administrator@your_domain_name` user.
4. Click Next.
5. Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is installed on the target vCenter Server instance, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.
6. Select the data center or data center folder that contains the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next
**Note:** You must select a data center or data center folder that contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
7. Select the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next.
6. On the Set up appliance VM page, enter a name for the vCenter Server appliance, set the password for the root user, and click Next.
The appliance name must not contain a percent sign (%), backslash (\), or forward slash (/) and must be no more than 80 characters in length.
The password must contain only lower ASCII characters without spaces, at least eight characters, a number, uppercase and lowercase letters, and a special character, for example, an exclamation mark (!), hash key (#), at sign (@), or brackets (()).
7. Select the deployment size for the vCenter Server appliance for your vSphere inventory.
See Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance for information about the deployment sizes you can select. The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the amount of memory for the appliance.
8. Select the storage size for the vCenter Server appliance, and click Next.
The required storage depends not only on the size of the vSphere environment, but also on the disk provisioning mode. See Storage Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance.
## vCenter Server Appliance Deployment
9 Select the storage location for the vCenter Server appliance where all the virtual machine configuration files and virtual disks will be stored.
| Option | Action |
|-------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Install on an existing datastore accessible from the target host | Select a datastore from the list of compatible datastores. |
| Install on a new vSAN cluster containing the target host | Specify the required details to create a new vSAN cluster or a vSAN Express Storage Architecture (vSAN ESA) cluster to store the vCenter Server appliance. |
| Install on an existing vSAN datastore and claim additional disks | Specify the required details to create a cluster on the vSAN datastore. This option is displayed only if your environment contains a vSAN datastore. |
To enable thin provisioning, select Enable Thin Disk Mode. NFS datastores are thin provisioned by default.
10 (Optional) If you selected vSAN as your storage location, you must claim disks for storage.
- For vSAN, claim disks separately for cache tier and capacity tier.
- For vSAN ESA, claim disks from the list of compatible disks.
11 On the Configure network settings page, set up the network settings. The IP address or the FQDN of the appliance is used as a system name. It is recommended to use an FQDN. However, if you want to use an IP address, use static IP address allocation for the appliance, because IP addresses allocated by DHCP might change.
| Option | Action |
|-----------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Network | Select the network to which to connect the appliance. The networks displayed in the drop-down menu depend on the network settings of the target server. |
| IP version | Select the version for the appliance IP address. You can select either IPv4 or IPv6. |
| IP assignment | Select how to allocate the IP address of the appliance. |
| | - static: The wizard prompts you to enter the IP address and network settings. |
| | - DHCP: A DHCP server is used to allocate the IP address. Select this option only if a DHCP server is available in your environment. |
If there is an enabled DDNS in your environment, you can enter a preferred fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the appliance.
Common Ports You can customize the HTTP and HTTPS ports (optional). If specifying a custom HTTP and HTTPS port number, ensure that you do not use a port number already in use by vCenter Server, or the default HTTP and HTTPS ports of 80 and 443.
Note
a You can only customize the HTTP and HTTPS ports during installation. You cannot customize any other port.
b You cannot change any port after installation.
c Upgrade or migration procedures persist all port configuration. Port customizations that were previously supported in Windows OS deployments are persisted in a Windows to Linux migration.
12 On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the vCenter Server appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.
13 Wait for the OVA deployment to finish, and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the deployment process to set up and start the services of the newly deployed appliance.
Note: If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the vCenter Server Management Interface to set up and start the services.
Results
The newly deployed vCenter Server appliance is running on the target server but the services are not started.
## Stage 2 - Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance
When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the deployment process to set up and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance.
### Procedure
1. Review the introduction to stage 2 of the deployment process and click Next.
2. Configure the time settings in the appliance, optionally enable remote SSH access to the appliance, and click Next.
| Option | Description |
|-----------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Synchronize time with the ESXi host | Enables periodic time synchronization, and VMware Tools sets the time of the guest operating system to be the same as the time of the ESXi host. |
| Synchronize time with NTP servers | Uses a Network Time Protocol server for synchronizing the time. If you select this option, you must enter the names or IP addresses of the NTP servers separated by commas. |
3. Create a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain or join an existing domain.
| Option | Description |
|------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Create a new Single Sign-On domain | Creates a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain.
a Enter the domain name, for example vsphere.local.
Note: Ensure that the domain name does not contain any upper-case letters.
b Set the password for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.
This is the password for the user administrator@your_domain_name.
c Confirm the administrator password, and click Next. |
| Join an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain | Joins a new vCenter Single Sign-On server to an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain. You must provide the information about the vCenter Single Sign-On server to which you join the new vCenter Single Sign-On server.
a Enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the vCenter Single Sign-On server to join.
b Enter the HTTPS port to use for communication with the vCenter Single Sign-On server.
c Enter the domain name for the vCenter Single Sign-On you are joining, for example vsphere.local.
d Enter the password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator account.
e Click Next. |
When you select to join an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain, you enable the Enhanced Linked Mode feature. The infrastructure data is replicated with the joined vCenter Single Sign-On server.
4. Review the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) page and choose if you want to join the program. For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program section in vCenter Server and Host Management.
5. On the Ready to complete page, review the configuration settings for the vCenter Server appliance, click Finish, and click OK to complete stage 2 of the deployment process and set up the appliance.
## Procedure
1. In the vCenter Server installer, navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer` directory, and open the `templates` subfolder.
2. Copy the deployment templates from the `install` subfolder to your workspace.
**Important**: The path to the JSON configuration files must contain only ASCII characters. Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.
3. In a text editor, open the template file for your specification. To ensure the correct syntax of your JSON configuration file, use a JSON editor.
4. Fill in the values for the required configuration parameters and, optionally, enter additional parameters and their values. For example, if you want to use an IPv4 DHCP assignment for the network of the appliance, in the network subsection of the template, change the value of the `mode` parameter to `dhcp` and remove the default configuration parameters that are for a static assignment.
```json
"network": {
"ip_family": "ipv4",
"mode": "dhcp"
}
```
**Important**: The string values, including the passwords, must contain only ASCII characters. Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.
To set a value that contains a backslash (`\`) or quotation mark (`"`) character, you must precede the character with the backslash (`\`) character. For example, `"password":"my\"password"` sets the password `my"password`, `"image":"G:\\vcsa\\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-8.0.0.XXXX-YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova"` sets the path `G:\vcsa\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-8.0.0.XXXX-YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova`. The Boolean values must contain only lowercase characters, that is, a value can be either `true` or `false`. For example, `"ssh_enable":false`.
5. (Optional) Use a JSON editor of your choice to validate the JSON file.
6. Save in UTF-8 format and close the file.
## What to do next
You can create and save additional templates if needed for your deployment specification.
### JSON Templates for CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance
The vCenter Server installer includes JSON templates with the minimum configuration parameters for all deployment options. The templates are located in the `vcsa-cli-installer/templates/install` directory.
For each deployment option, there is one template for deploying the appliance on an ESXi host and another template for deploying the appliance on a vCenter Server instance.
| Template | Description |
|------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| embedded_vCSA_on_ESXi.json | Contains the minimum configuration parameters required for the deployment of a vCenter Server appliance on an ESXi host. |
| vCSA_with_cluster_on_ESXi.json | Contains the minimum configuration parameters required for the deployment of a vCenter Server appliance with a single node vSAN and a vLCM managed cluster on an ESXi host. |
| embedded_vCSA_on_VC.json | Contains the minimum configuration parameters required for the deployment of a vCenter Server appliance on a vCenter Server instance. |
| embedded_vCSA_replication_on_ESXi.json | Contains the minimum configuration parameters required for the deployment of a vCenter Server appliance as a replication partner to another embedded vCenter Server on an ESXi host. |
| embedded_vCSA_replication_on_VC.json | Contains the minimum configuration parameters required for the deployment of a vCenter Server appliance replication partner to another vCenter Server appliance on a vCenter Server instance. |
## Deployment Configuration Parameters
When you prepare your JSON configuration files for a CLI deployment, you must set parameters and values to provide input data for the deployment of a vCenter Server appliance.
### Sections and Subsections of Configuration Parameters in the JSON Deployment Files
The configuration parameters in the JSON configuration files for a CLI upgrade are organized in sections and subsections.
## Configuration Parameters in the JSON Deployment Files
## Table 2-6. Sections and Subsections of Configuration Parameters in the JSON Deployment Files
| Section | Subsection | Description |
|---------|------------|-------------|
| new_vcsa | | describes the appliance you want to deploy |
| esxi | | Use only if you want to deploy the appliance directly on an ESXi host. Contains the configuration parameters that describe the target ESXi host. Depending on whether you want to configure a vSAN or a vLCM Managed Cluster during the deployment, see the relevant section for a detailed information about the configuration parameters. See also Table 2-7. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, esxi Subsection for Deployments with a vSAN and a vLCM Managed Cluster and Table 2-8. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, esxi Subsection for Deployments without a vSAN or a vLCM Managed Cluster. Note: You must fill in either the esxi or the vc subsection. |
| vc | | Use only if you want to deploy the appliance on the inventory of a vCenter Server instance. Contains the configuration parameters that describe the target ESXi host or DRS cluster from the vCenter Server inventory. See Table 2-9. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, vc Subsection. Note: You must fill in either the vc or the esxi subsection. |
| appliance | | Contains the configuration parameters that describe the appliance. See Table 2-10. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, appliance Subsection. |
| network | | Contains the configuration parameters that describe the network settings for the appliance. See Table 2-11. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, network Subsection. |
| os | | Contains the configuration parameters that describe the operating system settings for the appliance. See Table 2-12. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, os Subsection. |
| sso | | Contains the configuration parameters that describe the vCenter Single Sign-On settings for the appliance. See Table 2-13. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, sso Subsection. |
| ovftool_arguments | | Optional subsection for adding arbitrary arguments and their values to the OVF Tool command that the installer generates. Important: The vCenter Server installer does not validate the configuration parameters in the ovftool_arguments subsection. If you set arguments that the OVF Tool does not recognize, the deployment might fail. |
| ceip | | describes joining the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) |
| settings | | Contains only the ceip_enabled configuration parameter to join or not to join the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). See Table 2-14. Configuration Parameters in the ceip Section, settings Subsection. Note: If set to true, you must run the CLI deployment command with the --acknowledge-ceip argument. For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program section in vCenter Server and Host Management. |
## Important
The string values, including the passwords, must contain only ASCII characters. Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported. To set a value that contains a backslash (\) or a quotation mark (") character, you must precede the character with the backslash (\) character. For example, `"password":"my\"password"` sets the password my"password. Similarly, `"image":"G:\\vcsa\\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-8.0.0.XXXX-YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova"` sets the path G:\vcsa\VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-8.0.0.XXXX-YYYYYYY_OVF10.ova. Boolean values must contain only lowercase characters. It must be either true or false. For example, `"ssh_enable":false`.
## Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section
### Table 2-7. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, esxi Subsection for Deployments with a vSAN and a vLCM Managed Cluster
| Name | Type | Description |
|------|------|-------------|
| hostname | string | The IP address or FQDN of the target ESXi host on which you want to deploy the appliance. |
| username | string | A user name with administrative privileges on the target ESXi host, for example, root. |
| password | string | The password of the user with administrative privileges on the target ESXi host. |
| deployment_network | string | The name of the network to which to connect the appliance. Note: The network must be accessible from the target ESXi host. Ignored if the target ESXi host has only one network. |
| datacenter | string | A specific data center you want to create. |
| cluster | string | The name of the vSAN or vLCM managed cluster. |
| compression_only | Boolean | Set the value to true to enable compression on the vSAN cluster. If this parameter is set to true, the deduplication_and_compression parameter must be set to false. |
| deduplication_and_compression | Boolean | Set the value to true to enable compression and deduplication on the vSAN cluster. If this parameter is set to true, the compression_only parameter must be set to false. |
| cache_disk | | A list of UUIDs or canonical names of disks you want to use for cache. Specify only SSDs. |
| capacity_disk | | A list of UUIDs or canonical names of disks you want to use for storage. Specify either SSDs or HDDs. |
| enable_vlcm | Boolean | Set to true to create a vLCM managed cluster. |
| enable_vsan_esa | Boolean | Set to true to create a vSAN cluster with vSAN ESA enabled. vSAN Express Storage Architecture is a next-generation architecture designed to get the most out of high-performance storage devices, resulting in greater performance and efficiency. |
### Table 2-7. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, esxi Subsection for Deployments with a vSAN and a vLCM Managed Cluster (continued)
| Name | Type | Description |
|------|------|-------------|
| single_tier | Array | A list of UUIDs or canonical names of disks you want to add to a vSAN storage pool. Required only if you set enable_vsan_esa to true. |
| vsan_hcl_database_path | String | Local vSAN HCL database path. If the vSAN HCL database present in this location is outdated, the installer will download and replace the older version with the latest version. Required only if you set enable_vsan_esa to true. |
| datastore | string | The name of the datastore where you want to store the configuration files and virtual disks of the appliance. Note: The datastore must be accessible from the ESXi host. If you are using the thin disk mode, the datastore size should have a minimum of 25GB space. |
| port | integer | The HTTPS reverse proxy port of the target ESXi host. The default port is 443. Use only if the target ESXi host uses a custom HTTPS reverse proxy port. |
### Table 2-8. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, esxi Subsection for Deployments without a vSAN or a vLCM Managed Cluster
| Name | Type | Description |
|------|------|-------------|
| hostname | string | The IP address or FQDN of the target ESXi host on which you want to deploy the appliance. |
| username | string | A user name with administrative privileges on the target ESXi host, for example, root. |
| password | string | The password of the user with administrative privileges on the target ESXi host. |
| deployment_network | string | The name of the network to which to connect the appliance. Note: The network must be accessible from the target ESXi host. Ignored if the target ESXi host has only one network. |
| datastore | string | The name of the datastore where you want to store the configuration files and virtual disks of the appliance. Note: The datastore must be accessible from the ESXi host. If you are using the thin disk mode, the datastore size should have a minimum of 25GB space. |
| port | integer | The HTTPS reverse proxy port of the target ESXi host. The default port is 443. Use only if the target ESXi host uses a custom HTTPS reverse proxy port. |
## Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section
## Table 2-9. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, vc Subsection
| Name | Type | Description |
|----------------------|---------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| hostname | string | The IP address or FQDN of the target vCenter Server instance on which you want to deploy the appliance. |
| username | string | vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user name on the target vCenter Server instance, for example, administrator@vsphere.local. |
| password | string | The password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user on the target vCenter Server instance. |
| deployment_network | string | The name of the network to which to connect the appliance.
**Note:** The network must be accessible from the target ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance. Ignored if the target ESXi host or DRS cluster has only one network. |
| datacenter | array | The vCenter Server datacenter that contains the target ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance.
If the datacenter is located in a folder or a structure of folders, specify the value as a comma-separated list of strings. For example, ["parent_folder", "child_folder", "datacenter_name"]
**Note:** The value is case-sensitive. |
| datastore | string | The name of the datastore that you want to store the configuration files and virtual disks of the appliance.
**Note:** The datastore must be accessible from the target ESXi host or DRS cluster. The datastore must have at least 25 GB of free space. |
| port | integer | The HTTPS reverse proxy port of the target vCenter Server instance. The default port is 443. Use only if the target vCenter Server instance uses a custom HTTPS reverse proxy port. |
## Table 2-9. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, vc Subsection (continued)
| Name | Type | Description |
|----------------------|---------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| target | array | The target ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance.
**Important:** You must provide the name that is displayed in the vCenter Server inventory. For example, if the name of the target ESXi host is an IP address in the vCenter Server inventory, you cannot provide an FQDN. If the target ESXi host or DRS cluster is located in a folder or a structure of folders, specify the value as a comma-separated list of strings. For example, ["parent_folder", "child_folder", "esxi-host.domain.com"]
If the target ESXi host is part of a cluster, specify the path as a comma-separated list of strings. For example, ["cluster_name", "esxi-host.domain.com"]
**Note:** The value is case-sensitive. |
| vm_folder | string | Optional. The name of the VM folder where the appliance is deployed. |
## Table 2-10. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, appliance Subsection
| Name | Type | Description |
|----------------------|---------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| thin_disk_mode | Boolean | Set to true to deploy the appliance with thin virtual disks. |
| deployment_option | string | The size of the appliance.
- Set to `tiny` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 10 hosts and 100 virtual machines with the default storage size. Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 12 GB of memory, and 315 GB of storage.
- Set to `tiny-lstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 10 hosts and 100 virtual machines with the large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 12 GB of memory, and 1390 GB of storage.
- Set to `tiny-xlstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 10 hosts and 100 virtual machines with the x-large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 2 CPUs, 12 GB of memory, and 3145 GB of storage.
- Set to `small` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 100 hosts and 1,000 virtual machines with the default storage size. Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 19 GB of memory, and 380 GB of storage.
- Set to `small-lstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 100 hosts and 1,000 virtual machines with the large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 19 GB of memory, and 1435 GB of storage.
- Set to `small-xlstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 100 hosts and 1,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 4 CPUs, 19 GB of memory, and 3195 GB of storage.
- Set to `medium` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual machines with the default storage size. Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 28 GB of memory, and 600 GB of storage.
- Set to `medium-lstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual machines with the large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 28 GB of memory, and 1600 GB of storage.
- Set to `medium-xlstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 8 CPUs, 28 GB of memory, and 3360 GB of storage.
- Set to `large` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines with the default storage size. Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 37 GB of memory, and 965 GB of storage.
- Set to `large-lstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines with the large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 37 GB of memory, and 1665 GB of storage.
- Set to `large-xlstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 16 CPUs, 37 GB of memory, and 3425 GB of storage.
- Set to `xlarge` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines with the default storage size. Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 56 GB of memory, and 1705 GB of storage.
- Set to `xlarge-lstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines with the large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 56 GB of memory, and 1805 GB of storage.
- Set to `xlarge-xlstorage` if you want to deploy a vCenter Server appliance for up to 2,000 hosts and 35,000 virtual machines with the x-large storage size. Deploys an appliance with 24 CPUs, 56 GB of memory, and 3565 GB of storage. |
| image | string | Optional. A local file path or URL to the vCenter Server appliance installation package. By default, the installer uses the installation package that is included in the ISO file, in the vcsa folder. |
| name | string | The VM name for the appliance. Must contain only ASCII characters except a percent sign (%), backslash (\), or forward slash (/) and must be no more than 80 characters in length. |
| ovftool_path | string | Optional. A local file path to the OVF Tool executable file. By default, the installer uses the OVF Tool instance that is included in the ISO file, in the vcsa/ovftool folder. |
## Table 2-11. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, network Subsection
| Name | Type | Description |
|-------------|---------|----------------------------------------------------------|
| ip_family | string | IP version for the network of the appliance. Set to ipv4 or ipv6. |
| mode | string | IP assignment for the network of the appliance. Set to static or dhcp. |
## Table 2-11. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, network Subsection (continued)
| Name | Type | Description |
|------------------|--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| ip | string | IP address for the appliance. Required only if you use static assignment, that is, if you set the mode parameter to static. You must set an IPv4 or IPv6 address that corresponds to the network IP version, that is, to the value of the ip.family parameter. An IPv4 address must comply with the RFC 790 guidelines. An IPv6 address must comply with the RFC 2373 guidelines. |
| dns_servers | string or array | IP addresses of one or more DNS servers. To set more than one DNS server, use a comma-separated list of strings or a comma-separated list as a single string to provide the path. For example, ["x.y.z.a", "x.y.z.b"] or "x.y.z.a, x.y.z.b". Optional when the mode parameter is set to static. Not supported when mode is set to DHCP. |
| prefix | string | Network prefix length. Use only if the mode parameter is set to static. Remove if the mode parameter is set to dhcp. The network prefix length is the number of bits that are set in the subnet mask. For example, if the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, there are 24 bits in the binary version of the prefix length, so the network prefix length is 24. For IPv4 version, the value must be between 0 and 32. For IPv6 version, the value must be between 0 and 128. |
| gateway | string | IP address of the default gateway. For IPv6 version, the value can be default. |
## Table 2-12. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, os Subsection
| Name | Type | Description |
|------------------|--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| password | string | The password for the root user of the appliance operating system. The password must contain between 8 and 20 characters, at least one uppercase letter, at least one lowercase letter, at least one number, and at least one special character, for example, a dollar sign ($), hash key (#), at sign (@), period (.), or exclamation mark (!). All characters must be lower ASCII characters without spaces. |
| ntp_servers | string or array | Optional. Host names or IP addresses of one or more NTP servers for time synchronization. To set more than one NTP server, use a comma-separated list of strings or a comma-separated list as a single string to provide the path. For example, ["x.y.z.a", "x.y.z.b"] or "x.y.z.a, x.y.z.b". |
| ssh_enable | Boolean | Set to true to enable SSH administrator login to the appliance. Note: vCenter Server appliance high availability requires remote SSH access to the appliance. |
| time_tools_sync | Boolean | Optional. Set to true to deploy the appliance with the VMware Tools time synchronization. VMware Tools synchronizes the time of the appliance with the time of the ESXi host. Ignored if you set NTP servers for time synchronization, that is, if you set the ntp.servers parameter. |
## Table 2-13. Configuration Parameters in the new_vcsa Section, sso Subsection
| Name | Type | Description |
|------------------|--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| password | string | Password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user, administrator@your_domain_name. If you are deploying a vCenter Server appliance as the first instance in a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain, you must set the password for the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user. The password must contain between 8 and 20 characters, at least one uppercase letter, at least one lowercase letter, at least one number, and at least one special character, for example, a dollar sign ($), hash key (#), at sign (@), period (.), or exclamation mark (!). All characters must be ASCII characters. |
| domain_name | string | vCenter Single Sign-On domain name, for example, vsphere.local. If you are deploying a vCenter Server appliance as the first instance in a new vCenter Single Sign-On domain, you must set the name for the new vCenter Single Sign-On domain. |
| replication_partner_hostname | string | The system name of the partner vCenter Server. Required only if you are deploying a replication partner in an existing vCenter Single Sign-On domain. |
| sso_port | integer | The HTTPS reverse proxy port of the partner vCenter Server. The default port is 443. Use only if the partner uses a custom HTTPS reverse proxy port. |
## Table 2-14. Configuration Parameters in the ceip Section, settings Subsection
| Name | Type | Description |
|------------------|--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| ceip_enabled | Boolean | Set to true to join the CEIP for this appliance. |
## Syntax of the CLI Deployment Command
You can use command arguments to set the execution parameters of the deployment command.
You can add a space-separated list of arguments to the CLI deployment command.
```
vcsa-deploy install path_to_the_json_file list_of_arguments
```
| Argument | Description |
|-----------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| --accept-eula | Accepts the end-user license agreement. Required for executing the deployment command. |
| --acknowledge-ceip | Confirms your acknowledgement of your VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) participation. Required if the ceip.enabled parameter is set to true in the JSON deployment template. |
| -v, --verbose | Adds debug information to the console output. |
| -t, --terse | Hides the console output. Displays only warning and error messages. |
| --log-dir LOG_DIR | Sets the location of the log and other output files. |
| --skip-ovftool-verification | Performs basic verification of the configuration parameters in the JSON file and deploys the appliance. Does not perform verification of the OVF Tool parameters. |
| --no-esx-ssl-verify | Skips the SSL verification for ESXi connections. Important: Avoid using this option because it might cause problems during deployment or after deployment because of not validated identity of the target ESXi host. |
| --no-ssl-certificate-verification | Skips security certificate verification for all server connections. |
| --operation-id OPERATION_ID | Provides an operation ID to track installation activities. |
| --pause-on-warnings | Pauses and waits for acknowledgment of warnings. |
| --verify-template-only | Performs basic template verification of the configuration parameters in the JSON file. Does not deploy the appliance. |
| --precheck-only | Performs only the basic template verification and OVF Tool parameter verification. Does not deploy the appliance. |
| --sso-ssl-thumbprint SSL-SHA1-THUMBPRINT | Validates server certificate against the supplied SHA1 thumbprint. |
| -h, --help | Displays the help message for the vcsa-deploy install command. |
| --template-help | Displays the help message for the use of configuration parameters in the JSON deployment file. |
After the execution finishes, you can get the exit code of the command.
## Exit Code Description
0 Command ran successfully
1 Runtime error
2 Validation error
3 Template error
## Deploy a vCenter Server Appliance by Using the CLI
You can use the CLI installer to perform an unattended deployment of a vCenter Server appliance. You must run the CLI deployment from a Windows, Linux, or Mac machine that is in the network on which you want to deploy the appliance.
### Prerequisites
- See Prerequisites for Deploying the vCenter Server Appliance.
- Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment.
- Review Syntax of the CLI Deployment Command.
- Verify that the user name with which you are logged in to your client machine, the path to the vCenter Server installer, the path to your JSON configuration file, and the string values in your JSON configuration file contain only ASCII characters. Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.
- The Visual C++ redistributable libraries version 14.0 or newer needs to be installed to run this utility on versions of Windows older than Windows 10. The Microsoft installers for these libraries are located in the `vcsa\ovftool\win32\vcredist` directory.
### Procedure
1. Navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer` subdirectory for your operating system.
- If you are running the deployment on Windows OS, navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer\win32` directory.
- If you are running the deployment on Linux OS, navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer/lin64` directory.
- If you are running the deployment on Mac OS, navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer/mac` directory.
2. (Optional) Run a pre-deployment check without deploying the appliance to verify that you prepared the deployment template correctly.
```
vcsa-deploy install --precheck-only path_to_the_json_file
```
3. Run the deployment command.
```
vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip optional_arguments path_to_the_json_file
```
Use `optional_arguments` to enter space-separated arguments to set additional execution parameters of the deployment command. For example, you can set the location of the log and other output files that the installer generates.
```
vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip --log-dir= path_to_the_location path_to_the_json_file
```
## Deploy Multiple vCenter Server Appliances Using the CLI
You can deploy multiple instances of vCenter Server appliances concurrently (in batch mode) using the CLI installer. To deploy multiple instances concurrently, create JSON templates for all the vCenter Server instances in your deployment. The CLI installer assesses the topology of the deployment using the JSON templates, and determines the order. For this reason, the JSON templates must use static IP addresses for all vCenter Server instances in the deployment that are dependant upon one another.
**Important** The JSON templates you create for each appliance must use a static IP address to resolve the network addresses of other appliances in the deployment upon which they have a dependency.
To perform the batch deployment, place the JSON templates defining your deployment in a single directory. When invoked, the CLI installer deploys your existing deployment using the topology defined in the JSON templates.
### Procedure
1. In your workspace, create a folder to contain the JSON files for batch deployment. For example, `MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy`.
2. Prepare each JSON configuration file and copy the file to your batch deployment folder. See Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment for instructions on configuring the JSON files.
3. Navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer` subdirectory for your operating system.
- If you are running the deployment on Windows OS, navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer\win32` directory.
- If you are running the deployment on Linux OS, navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer/lin64` directory.
- If you are running the deployment on Mac OS, navigate to the `vcsa-cli-installer/mac` directory.
4. (Optional) Run a pre-deployment check without deploying the appliance to verify that you prepared the deployment template correctly. For example:
```
vcsa-deploy install --precheck-only MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy
```
5. Run the deployment command. For example,
```
vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip optional_arguments MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy
```
Use `optional_arguments` to enter space-separated arguments to set additional execution parameters of the deployment command. For example, you can set the location of the log and other output files that the installer generates.
```
vcsa-deploy install --accept-eula --acknowledge-ceip --log-dir= path_to_the_location MyWorkspace/BatchDeploy
```
## File-Based Backup and Restore of vCenter Server
vCenter Server supports a file-based backup and restore mechanism that helps you to recover your environment after failures. You can use the vCenter Server Interface to create a file-based backup of the vCenter Server. After you create the backup, you can restore it by using the GUI installer of the appliance.
You use the vCenter Server Interface to perform a file-based backup of the vCenter Server core configuration, inventory, and historical data of your choice. The backed-up data is streamed over FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB to a remote system. The backup is not stored on the vCenter Server.
You can perform a file-based restore only for a vCenter Server that you have previously backed up by using the vCenter Server Interface. You can perform such a restore operation by using the GUI installer of the vCenter Server appliance. The process consists of deploying a new vCenter Server appliance and copying the data from the file-based backup to the new appliance.
**Important** If you back up a vCenter Server High Availability cluster, the backup operation only backs up the primary vCenter Server instance. Before restoring a vCenter Server High Availability cluster, you must power off the active, passive, and witness nodes. The restore operation restores the vCenter Server in non-vCenter Server High Availability mode. You must reconstruct the cluster after the restore operation completes successfully.
Read the following topics next:
- Considerations and Limitations for File-Based Backup and Restore
- Schedule a File-Based Backup
- Manually Back Up vCenter Server by Using the vCenter Server Management Interface
- Restore vCenter Server from a File-Based Backup
## Considerations and Limitations for File-Based Backup and Restore
When you back up or restore a vCenter Server environment, take into account these considerations and limitations.
## Protocols
The following considerations apply to file-based backup and restore protocols:
- FTP and HTTP are not secure protocols.
- Backup servers must support a minimum of 10 simultaneous connections for each vCenter Server.
- You can use an FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB server that is up and running with sufficient disk space to store the backup.
- You must have write permissions for upload and read permissions for download.
- Only explicit mode is supported for FTPS.
- If you use HTTP or HTTPS, you must enable WebDAV on the backup Web server.
- You can use only FTP, FTPS, HTTP, or HTTPS to transmit data through an HTTP proxy server.
- You can use IPv4 and IPv6 URLs in file-based backup and restore of a vCenter Server. Mixed mode of IP versions between the backup server and the vCenter Server is unsupported.
## Configuration
After a restore, the following configurations revert to the state when the backup was taken.
- Virtual machine resource settings
- Resource pool hierarchy and setting
- Cluster-host membership
- DRS configuration and rules
### Storage DRS
If the configuration changes, the following might change after a restore.
- Datastore Cluster configuration
- Datastore Cluster membership
- Datastore I/O Resource Management (Storage I/O Control) settings
- Datastore-Datacenter membership
- Host-Datastore membership
### Distributed Power Management
If you put a host into standby mode after a backup, the vCenter Server might force the host to exit standby mode when you restore to the backup.
### Distributed Virtual Switch
If you use a distributed virtual switch, you are advised to export separately the distributed virtual switch configuration before you restore from a backup. You can import the configuration after the restore. If you omit this consideration, you may lose the changes made to a distributed virtual switch after the backup. For detailed steps, see the VMware knowledge base article at [http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034602](http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034602).
However, when you restore the host-membership after a backup, you will not lose any host that you have added or removed from the distributed virtual switch after the backup. Note: You can only restore the distributed virtual switch-host membership if the host is part of the cluster.
### Content Libraries
If you delete libraries or items after a backup, you cannot access or use these libraries or items after the restore. You can only delete such libraries or items. A warning message notifies you that there are missing files or folders in the storage backup.
If you create new items or item files after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the new items or files after the restore operation. A warning notifies you that extra folders or files were found on the storage backup.
If you create new libraries after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the new libraries after restore. The library content exists on the storage backing, but no warning is displayed. You must manually clean the new libraries.
### Virtual Machine Life Cycle Operations
- Restoring vCenter Server from a backup that was taken during in-flight relocation operations in the vCenter Server instance.
After you restore vCenter Server, the vCenter Server view of the virtual machines might be out of sync with the ESXi view of the virtual machines. This is also true if you performed the backup during in-flight operations on vCenter Server. If virtual machines disappear after you restore vCenter Server, you can refer to the following cases.
a. The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host and is registered with the destination ESXi host, but it is either an orphan or not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must manually add the virtual machine to the vCenter Server inventory.
b. The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with the destination ESXi host and it is not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must manually register the virtual machine to the ESXi host and add the virtual machine back to the vCenter Server inventory.
c. The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with the destination ESXi host. In the vCenter Server instance, the missing virtual machine is marked as orphaned. You must remove the virtual machine from the vCenter Server inventory and add it again.
- Restoring vCenter Server from a backup that has an out-of-date linked clone virtual machine layout.
If you create a linked clone virtual machine after the backup and you restore vCenter Server from the old backup, then after the restore, the vCenter Server does not know about the new linked clone virtual machine until vCenter Server discovers the new linked clone virtual machine. If you remove all existing virtual machines before the new linked clone virtual machine is discovered, then the removal of existing virtual machines corrupts the new linked clone due to missing disks. To avoid this, you must wait until all linked clone virtual machines are discovered by the vCenter Server before you remove virtual machines.
- Restoring vCenter Server from a backup that was taken during virtual machine registration.
If you are registering a virtual machine during the backup and you restore vCenter Server from the old backup, then after the restore, the virtual machine is marked as orphaned in the vCenter Server instance. You must manually add the virtual machine to the vCenter Server inventory.
### vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode
To restore a vCenter Server that is part of an Enhanced Linked Mode, you must have at least one running vCenter Server that has the VMware Directory Service database. If the replication partners are temporarily unavailable or network-isolated, fix the replication partners before restoring the node. If all nodes in the federation have failed, you can ignore the warning and restore only the first node without replication partners. Restore the rest of the nodes according to the Enhanced Linked Mode topology.
### vSphere High Availability
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might cause it to roll back to an older version for the vSphere HA cluster state (HostList, ClusterConfiguration, VM protection state) while the hosts in the cluster have the latest version for the cluster state. You need to make sure the vSphere HA cluster state stays the same during restore and backup operations. Otherwise, the following problems might occur.
- If hosts are added or removed to or from the vSphere HA cluster after backup and before vCenter Server restore, virtual machines could potentially failover to hosts not being managed by the vCenter Server but are still part of the HA cluster.
- Protection state for new virtual machines is not updated on the vSphere HA agents on the hosts that are part of the vSphere HA cluster. As a result, virtual machines are not protected or unprotected.
## vCenter High Availability
Restoring vCenter Server requires vCenter HA to be reconfigured.
## Storage Policy Based Management
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup can lead to the following inconsistencies related to storage policies, storage providers, and virtual machines.
- Registered storage providers after backup are lost.
- Unregistered storage providers after backup re-appear and might show different provider status.
- Changes, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policies after backup are lost.
- Changes, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policy components after backup are lost.
- Default policy configuration changes for datastores performed after backup are lost.
- Changes in the storage policy association of the virtual machine and its disks, and in their policy compliance might occur.
## Virtual Storage Area Network
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might cause inconsistencies in the vSAN. For information on how to check vSAN health, see Administering VMware vSAN.
## Patching
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might result in missing security patches. You must apply them again after the restore is complete. For information on patching the vCenter Server, see vSphere Upgrade.
## Schedule a File-Based Backup
You can schedule file-based backups for vSphere 6.7 and later. You can set up a schedule that is used to perform periodic backups. The schedule can be set up with information about the backup location, recurrence, and retention for the backups. You can only set up one schedule at a time.
### Prerequisites
- You must have a FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB server up and running with sufficient disk space to store the backup.
### Procedure
1. In a Web browser, go to the vCenter Server Management Interface, `https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:5480`.
2. Log in as root.
3. In the vCenter Server Management Interface, click Backup.
4. Click Configure to set up a backup schedule.
5. Enter the backup location details.
| Option | Description |
|-----------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Backup location | Enter the backup location, including the protocol to use to connect to your backup server, the port, the server address, and backup folder to store the backup files. Use one of the following protocols: FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB. For FTP, FTPS, HTTP, or HTTPS the path is relative to the home directory configured for the service. |
| Backup server credentials | Enter a user name and password of a user with write privileges on the backup server. |
6. Set the schedule recurrence and time for the backup. The recurrence can be set daily, weekly, or you can customize the schedule to run the backup on a specific day or days of the week. You can specify the time of day to run the backup. The default time is 11:59pm.
7. (Optional) Enter an Encryption Password if you want to encrypt your backup file. If you select to encrypt the backup data, you must use the encryption password for the restore procedure.
8. Select Retain all backups or enter the number of backups to retain. The retention information provides the number of backups to retain for a given vCenter Server.
Note: This policy applies to both manual and scheduled backups.
9. (Optional) Select Stats, Events, and Tasks to back up additional historical data from the database.
10. Click Create. The backup schedule information is populated in the Backup page.
### Results
The complete and in progress backups are listed under Activity.
### What to do next
You can perform an immediate backup with the existing schedule information by selecting Use backup location and user name from backup schedule from the backup schedule on the Backup Now dialog box.
## Manually Back Up vCenter Server by Using the vCenter Server Management Interface
You can use the vCenter Server Management Interface to back up the vCenter Server instance. You can select whether to include historical data, such as stats, events, and tasks, in the backup file.
Note: The backup operation for a vCenter High Availability cluster backs up only the active node.
### Prerequisites
- You must have an FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB server up and running with sufficient disk space to store the backup.
### Procedure
1. In a Web browser, go to the vCenter Server Management Interface, `https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:5480`.
2. Log in as root.
3. In the vCenter Server Management Interface, click Backup. The table under Activity displays the most current backup version taken of the vCenter Server.
4. Click Backup Now. The Backup Appliance wizard opens.
5. (Optional) Select Use backup location and user name from backup schedule to use the information from a scheduled backup.
6. Enter the backup location details.
| Option | Description |
|-----------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Backup location | Enter the backup location, including the protocol to use to connect to your backup server, the port, the server address, and backup folder to store the backup files. Use one of the following protocols: FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB. For FTP, FTPS, HTTP, or HTTPS the path is relative to the home directory configured for the service. |
| Backup server credentials | Enter a user name and password of a user with write privileges on the backup server. |
Note: Username and password should only contain ASCII characters.
7. (Optional) Enter an Encryption Password if you want to encrypt your backup file. If you select to encrypt the backup data, you must use the encryption password for the restore procedure.
8. (Optional) Select Stats, Events, and Tasks to back up additional historical data from the database.
9. (Optional) In the Description text box, enter a description of the backup.
10. Click Start to begin the backup process.
### Results
The complete and in progress backups are listed under Activity.
## Restore vCenter Server from a File-Based Backup
You can use the vCenter Server appliance GUI installer to restore a vCenter Server to an ESXi host or a vCenter Server instance. The restore procedure has two stages. The first stage deploys a new vCenter Server appliance. The second stage populates the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance with the data stored in the file-based backup.
### Prerequisites
- Verify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance.
## Procedure
1. **Stage 1 - Deploy a New Appliance**
In stage 1 of the restore process, you deploy the OVA file, which is included in the vCenter Server GUI installer.
As an alternative to performing the first stage of the restore with the GUI installer, you can deploy the OVA file of the new vCenter Server appliance by using the vSphere Client. After the OVA deployment, you must log in to the vCenter Server Management Interface of the newly deployed appliance to proceed with the second stage of the restore process. See "Deploy an OVF or OVA Template" in vSphere Virtual Machine Administration for information about deploying an OVA file using the vSphere Client.
### Prerequisites
- Download and mount the vCenter Server installer. See Download and Mount the vCenter Server Installer.
- If you are restoring a backup from a product that has a vCenter Server product patch applied, you must download the full ISO of that particular patch. See Download VMware vSphere.
- If you plan to restore the vCenter Server on an ESXi host, verify that the target ESXi host is not in lockdown or maintenance mode or part of a fully-automated DRS cluster.
- If you plan to restore the vCenter Server on a DRS cluster of a vCenter Server inventory, verify that the cluster contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
- If you plan to assign a static IP address to the appliance, verify that you have configured the forward and reverse DNS records for the IP address.
- If you are attempting to restore a vCenter Server instance that is still running, power off the backed up vCenter Server before you start the restore operation.
2. **In the vCenter Server installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.**
- For Windows OS, go to the win32 subdirectory, and run the installer.exe file.
- For Linux OS, go to the lin64 subdirectory, and run the installer file.
- For Mac OS, go to the mac subdirectory, and run the Installer.app file.
3. On the Home page, click Restore.
4. Review the Introduction page to understand the restore process and click Next.
5. Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next.
6. On the Enter backup details page, enter the details of the backup file that you want to restore, and click Next.
| Option | Description |
|---------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Backup location | Enter the server address and backup folder where the backup files are stored. You can also enter the IP address or hostname of the backup server and browse for the location of the backup folder. Specify the protocol to use to retrieve the backup from your backup server. You can select FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB. For example, `ftp:///tmp/vCenter/hostname_vcenter.com/` |
| User name | Enter the user name of a user with read privileges on the backup server. |
| Password | Enter the password of the user with read privileges on the backup server. |
7. Review the backup information, and click Next.
8. Connect to the ESXi host or vCenter Server on which you want to deploy the vCenter Server appliance to use for the restore operation.
- **You can connect to an ESXi host on which to deploy the appliance to use for the restore operation.**
1. Enter the FQDN or IP address of the ESXi host.
2. Enter the HTTPS port of the ESXi host.
3. Enter the user name and password of a user with administrative privileges on the ESXi host, for example, the root user.
4. Click Next.
5. Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is installed on the target ESXi host, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.
- **You can connect to a vCenter Server instance and browse the inventory to select an ESXi host or DRS cluster on which to deploy the appliance to use for the restore operation.**
1. Enter the FQDN or IP address of the vCenter Server instance.
2. Enter the HTTPS port of the vCenter Server instance.
3. Enter the user name and password of user with vCenter Single Sign-On administrative privileges on the vCenter Server instance, for example, the `administrator@your_domain_name` user.
4. Click Next.
5. Verify that the certificate warning displays the SHA1 thumbprint of the SSL certificate that is installed on the target vCenter Server instance, and click Yes to accept the certificate thumbprint.
6. Select the data center or data center folder that contains the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next.
> Note: You must select a data center or data center folder that contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
7. Select the ESXi host or DRS cluster on which you want to deploy the appliance, and click Next.
8. Accept the certificate warning.
9. Enter a name for the vCenter Server appliance, set up the password for the root user, and click Next.
10. Select the deployment size for the new vCenter Server appliance depending on the size of your vSphere inventory.
| Deployment Size | Option Description |
|------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Tiny | Deploys an appliance with 2 vCPUs and 14 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines. |
| Small | Deploys an appliance with 4 vCPUs and 21 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines. |
| Medium | Deploys an appliance with 8 vCPUs and 30 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines. |
| Large | Deploys an appliance with 16 vCPUs and 39 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines. |
| X-Large | Deploys an appliance with 24 vCPUs and 58 GB of memory. Suitable for environments with up to 2,500 hosts or 45,000 virtual machines. |
11 Select the storage size for the new vCenter Server appliance, and click Next.
Important: You must consider the storage size of the appliance that you are restoring.
| Storage Size Option | Description for Tiny Deployment Size | Description for Small Deployment Size | Description for Medium Deployment Size | Description for Large Deployment Size | Description for X-Large Deployment Size |
|---------------------|-------------------------------------|--------------------------------------|----------------------------------------|---------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------|
| Default | Deploys an appliance with 579 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 694 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 908 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 1358 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 2283 GB of storage. |
| Large | Deploys an appliance with 2019 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 2044 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 2208 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 2258 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 2383 GB of storage. |
| X-Large | Deploys an appliance with 4279 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 4304 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 4468 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 4518 GB of storage. | Deploys an appliance with 4643 GB of storage. |
12 From the list of available datastores, select the location where all the virtual machine configuration files and virtual disks will be stored and, optionally, enable thin provisioning by selecting Enable Thin Disk Mode.
13 On the Configure network settings page, review the settings populated from the backup file of the vCenter Server.
14 (Optional) Edit the network configuration to match the current network environment where the vCenter Server is restored.
15 On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the restored vCenter Server appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.
16 Wait for the OVA deployment to finish, and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the restore process to transfer the data to the newly deployed appliance.
Note: If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the vCenter Server Management Interface to transfer the data.
## Results
The newly deployed vCenter Server appliance is running on the target server but the data is not copied from the backup location.
### Stage 2 - Transfer Data to the Newly Deployed Appliance
After the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the restore process in which the data from the backup location is copied to the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance.
**Procedure**
1. Review the introduction to stage 2 of the restore process and click Next.
2. Review the backup details and click Next.
3. If you are restoring a node with enhanced linked mode support for vCenter Server appliance, you are asked to provide the Single Sign-On credentials. Enter the Single Sign-On user name and password, then click Validate and Recover.
4. On the Ready to complete page, review the details, click Finish, and click OK to complete stage 2 of the restore process.
The restore process restarts the vCenter Server Management Service. You cannot access the vCenter Server Management API during the restart.
Important: If a restore operation of a vCenter Server appliance VM results in a failure, you must power off and delete the partially restored VM. After that, you can try to restore the VM again.
5. (Optional) After the restore process finishes, click the vSphere Client to log in to the vCenter Server instance, or click the Getting Started page.
6. Click Close to exit the wizard. You are redirected to the vCenter Server Getting Started page.
7. If the backed-up vCenter node is part of a vCenter High Availability cluster, the last needs to be reconfigured after the restore operation completes successfully.
For information about how to perform backup and restore operations, see vSphere Availability.
## What to do next
After successful completion of the restore operation, in the event of a total loss of all storage and servers where all the physical hardware or the data in the hardware is lost, follow the instructions in the VMware knowledge base article at [http://kb.vmware.com/kb/76585](http://kb.vmware.com/kb/76585) in order to recover the system to a pre-restore state at the time of the backup.
## Image-Based Backup and Restore of a vCenter Server Environment
You can use vSphere APIs with a third-party product to back up and restore a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server.
You can perform a full image backup of a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server. The virtual machine must use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) with correct DNS resolution, or the hostname must be configured to be an IP address.
Read the following topics next:
- Considerations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup and Restore
- Restore a vCenter Server Image-based Environment
### Considerations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup and Restore
When you restore a vCenter Server environment, take into account these considerations and limitations.
Note: Restoring a vCenter Server instance with DHCP network configuration results in changing its IP address. The changed IP address prevents some vCenter Server services from starting properly. To start all vCenter Server services successfully, after the restore, you must reconfigure the IP address of the restored vCenter Server instance to the IP address that the instance was set to when you performed the backup.
**Synchronizing Clocks with NTP Time Synchronization Prior to Backup**
Before creating a backup of your vCenter Server deployment, verify that all components on the vSphere network have their clocks synchronized using NTP time synchronization. See Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network.
### Configuration
After a restore, the following configurations revert to the state when the backup was taken.
- Virtual machine resource settings
- Resource pool hierarchy and setting
- Cluster-host membership
- DRS configuration and rules
### Storage DRS
If the configuration changes, the following might change after a restore.
- Datastore Cluster configuration
- Datastore Cluster membership
- Datastore I/O Resource Management (Storage I/O Control) settings
- Datastore-Datacenter membership
- Host-Datastore membership
### Distributed Power Management
If you put a host into standby mode after a backup, the vCenter Server might force the host to exit standby mode when you restore to the backup.
### Distributed Virtual Switch
If you use a distributed virtual switch, you are advised to export separately the distributed virtual switch configuration before you restore to a backup. You can import the configuration after the restore. If you omit this consideration, you may lose the changes made to a distributed virtual switch after the backup. For detailed steps, see the VMware Knowledge Base article at [http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034602](http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034602).
### Content Libraries
If you delete libraries or items after a backup, you cannot access or use these libraries or items after the restore. You can only delete such libraries or items. A warning message notifies you that there are missing files or folders in the storage backup.
If you create new items or item files after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the new items or files after the restore operation. A warning notifies you that extra folders or files were found on the storage backup.
If you create new libraries after the backup, the Content Library Service has no record of the new libraries after restore. The library content exists on the storage backing, but no warning is displayed. You must manually clean the new libraries.
### Virtual Machine Life Cycle Operations
- Restoring vCenter Server from a backup that was taken while there are in-flight relocation operations within the vCenter Server instance.
## Restoring vCenter Server
After you restore vCenter Server, the vCenter Server view of the virtual machines may be out of sync with the ESXi view of the virtual machines. This is also true if you performed the backup while there were in-flight operations on vCenter Server. If virtual machines disappear after you restore vCenter Server, you can refer to the following cases.
1. The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host and is registered with the destination ESXi host, but it is not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must manually add the virtual machine to the vCenter Server inventory.
2. The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with the destination ESXi host and it is not in the vCenter Server inventory. You must manually register the virtual machine to the ESXi and add the virtual machine back to the vCenter Server inventory.
3. The missing virtual machine is located on the destination ESXi host, but it is not registered with the destination ESXi host. Within the vCenter Server instance, the missing virtual machine is marked as orphaned. You must remove the virtual machine from the vCenter Server inventory and add it again.
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup that has an out of date linked clone virtual machine layout.
If you create a linked clone virtual machine after the backup and you restore vCenter Server from the old backup, then after the restore, vCenter Server does not know about the new linked clone virtual machine until vCenter Server discovers the new linked clone virtual machine. If you remove all existing virtual machines before the new linked clone virtual machine is discovered, then the removal of existing virtual machines corrupts the new linked clone due to missing disks. To avoid this corruption, you must wait until all linked clone virtual machines get discovered by the vCenter Server before you remove virtual machines.
## vSphere High Availability
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup may cause it to roll back to older version for the vSphere HA cluster state (HostList, ClusterConfiguration, VM protection state) while the hosts in the cluster have the latest version for the cluster state. Ensure that the vSphere HA cluster state stays the same during restore and backup operations. Otherwise, the following potential problems are present:
- If hosts are added or removed to/from the vSphere HA cluster after backup and before vCenter Server restore, virtual machines could potentially fail over to hosts not managed by the vCenter Server but are still part of the HA cluster.
- Protection states for new virtual machines are not updated on the vSphere HA agents on the hosts which are part of the vSphere HA cluster. As a result, virtual machines are not protected/unprotected.
- New cluster configuration state is not updated on the vSphere HA agents on the hosts which are part of the vSphere HA cluster.
## vCenter High Availability
Restoring vCenter Server requires vCenter HA to be reconfigured.
## Storage Policy Based Management
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup can lead to the following inconsistencies related to storage policies, storage providers, and virtual machines:
- Registered storage providers after backup are lost.
- Unregistered storage providers after backup reappear and might show different provider status.
- Changes, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policies after backup are lost.
- Changes, such as create, delete, or update, performed on storage policy components after backup are lost.
- Default policy configuration changes for datastores performed after backup are lost.
- Changes in the storage policy association of the virtual machine and its disks, and in their policy compliance might occur.
## Virtual Storage Area Network
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup may cause inconsistencies in the vSAN. For information on how to check vSAN health, see Administering VMware vSAN.
## Patching
Restoring vCenter Server from a backup might result in missing security patches. You must apply them again after the restore is complete. For information on patching the vCenter Server appliance, see vSphere Upgrade.
## Restore a vCenter Server Image-based Environment
You can use a third-party product that uses vSphere APIs to restore a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server. You can perform an image-based restore of a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server. The virtual machine must use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) with correct DNS resolution, or the host name of the machine must be configured to be an IP address.
You can restore a virtual machine to the original location by either overwriting the backed up virtual machine or by creating a new virtual machine that contains the restored vCenter Server on the same ESXi host. You can also restore the virtual machine on a new ESXi host.
You can restore a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server directly on the ESXi host that is running the third-party appliance when the vCenter Server service becomes unavailable or when you cannot access the third-party user interface by using the vSphere Client.
**Important**: Restoring virtual machines that have snapshots or that are configured with Fault Tolerance is unsupported.
## Restore a vCenter Server Instance
You can use a third-party product to restore a vCenter Server environment.
**Important**: You can back up and restore only virtual machines that contain vCenter Server instances. You cannot back up and restore physical machines that are running vCenter Server by using a third-party product.
### Procedure
1. Restore the vCenter Server virtual machine onto the ESXi host using a third-party solution.
2. Use the `service-control --status --all` command to verify that the services have started. Wait for all the vCenter Server services to start, which can take several minutes.
3. Launch the vCenter Server Management Interface, `https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:5480`.
4. When you launch the vCenter Server Management Interface, based on the change in the vCenter Server appliance data you will see one of the following:
- If there is a change in the vCenter Server appliance data that needs to be synchronized, a reconciliation window will be displayed. Follow the prompts to complete the reconciliation and then provide the Single Sign-On credentials to log into the vCenter Server Management Interface.
- If there is no change in the vCenter Server appliance data, the vCenter Server Management Interface login screen will be displayed.
**What to do next**: Power on the restored virtual machine that contains the restored vCenter Server instance.
## Restore a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode Environment
You can restore a vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode environment using a third-party solution.
**Important**: You can back up and restore only virtual machines that contain vCenter Server instances. You cannot back up and restore physical machines that are running vCenter Server by using a third-party product.
### Procedure
1. Restore the vCenter Server virtual machine onto the ESXi host using a third-party solution. The services are masked and are not yet running.
2. Use the `systemctl status applmgmt` command to verify that the systemd instance of the applmgmt service has started. Wait for all the vCenter Server services to start, which can take several minutes.
3. Log into the vCenter Server Management Interface, `https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:5480`.
**What to do next**: Power on the restored virtual machine that contains the restored vCenter Server instance.
## After You Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance
After you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, consider these post installation options before adding inventory for the vCenter Server to manage.
If you plan to install Windows 11 as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, you must configure a key provider. Installing Windows 11 requires a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0. When installing Windows 11 as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, instead of using a physical TPM, you can use a virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM). A vTPM is a software-based representation of a physical TPM 2.0 chip. A vTPM depends on virtual machine encryption to secure vital TPM data, and so requires that you configure a key provider. For information about the key providers supported by vSphere, see the Virtual Machine Encryption chapter in the vSphere Security documentation. The easiest way is to configure a VMware vSphere® Native Key Provider™. vSphere Native Key Provider is included in all vSphere editions and does not require an external key server. For information about configuring a vSphere Native Key Provider, see Configuring and Managing vSphere Native Key Provider chapter in the vSphere Security documentation. As with all security solutions, consider the system design, implementation considerations, and tradeoffs of using vSphere Native Key Provider.
For information about configuring the vSphere Authentication Proxy service, see vSphere Security.
For information about upgrading vCenter Server, see vCenter Server Upgrade.
Read the following topics next:
- How to Log in to Your vCenter Server by Using the vSphere Client
- Install the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in
- Repoint vCenter Server to Another vCenter Server in a Different Domain
## How to Log in to Your vCenter Server by Using the vSphere Client
Learn how to use the vSphere Client to log in to vCenter Server and manage your vSphere inventory. The vSphere Client is automatically installed as part of the vCenter Server appliance deployment. This way, the vSphere Client always points to the same vCenter Single Sign-On instance.
### Procedure
1. Open a Web browser and enter the URL for your vCenter Server instance: `https://vcenter_server_ip_address_or_fqdn`
As an alternative, you can open a Web browser and enter the URL for the vSphere Client: `https://vcenter_server_ip_address_or_fqdn/ui`.
2. If a warning message about a potential security risk appears, select to continue to the website.
**Browser Action**
- Microsoft Edge
- a Click Details.
- b Under the additional message that appears, click Go on to the webpage.
- Mozilla Firefox
- a Click Advanced.
- b Under the additional message that appears, click Accept the Risk and Continue.
- Google Chrome
- a Click Advanced.
- b Under the additional message that appears, click Proceed to `vcenter_server_ip_address_or_fqdn`.
3. On the vSphere Welcome page, select Launch vSphere Client (HTML5).
4. If the warning message about a potential security risk appears again, repeat Step 2.
5. Enter the credentials of a user who has permissions on vCenter Server and click Login.
**Results**
The vSphere Client connects to all the vCenter Server systems on which the specified user has permissions, and you can view and manage the vSphere inventory.
## Install the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in
The VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in provides Integrated Windows Authentication and Windows-based smart card functionality. In the vSphere 6.5 release, the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in replaced the Client Integration Plug-in from vSphere 6.0 releases and earlier. The Enhanced Authentication Plug-in provides Integrated Windows Authentication and Windows-based smart card functionality. These are the only two features carried over from the previous Client Integration Plug-in. The Enhanced Authentication Plug-in can function seamlessly if you already have the Client Integration Plug-in installed on your system from vSphere 6.0 or earlier. There are no conflicts if both plug-ins are installed.
**Note**: Install the plug-in only once to enable all the functionality the plug-in delivers. When you enable Active Directory Federation Services, Enhanced Authentication Plug-in applies only to configurations where vCenter Server is the identity provider (Active Directory over LDAP, Integrated Windows Authentication, and OpenLDAP configurations).
### Procedure
1. Open a Web browser and type the URL for the vSphere Client.
2. At the bottom of the vSphere Client login page, click Download Enhanced Authentication Plug-in.
**Note**: The Enhanced Authentication Plug-in has been deprecated in vSphere 7.0 Update 2 and there is only one version available for download.
3. If the browser blocks the installation either by issuing certificate errors or by running a pop-up blocker, follow the Help instructions for your browser to resolve the problem.
4. Save the plug-in to your computer, and run the executable.
5. Step through the installation wizard for both the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in and the VMware Plug-in Service which are run in succession.
6. When the installations are complete, refresh your browser.
7. On the External Protocol Request dialog box, click Launch Application to run the Enhanced Authentication Plug-in. The link to download the plug-in disappears from the login page.
## Repoint vCenter Server to Another vCenter Server in a Different Domain
You can move a vCenter Server from one vSphere domain to another vSphere domain. Services such as tagging and licensing are retained and migrated to the new domain.
The following use cases are supported:
- You can migrate a vCenter Server from an existing domain to another existing domain with or without replication. The migrated vCenter Server moves from its current Single Sign-On domain and joins the other existing domain as another vCenter Server connected via enhanced linked mode.
- See Repoint a Single vCenter Server Node to an Existing Domain without a Replication Partner for instructions on repointing a single embedded node from one domain to an existing domain without a replication partner.
- See Repoint a vCenter Server Node to an Existing Domain with a Replication Partner for instructions on repointing an embedded node from one domain to an existing domain using replication.
- You can migrate a vCenter Server from an existing domain to a newly created domain (where the migrated vCenter Server is the first instance). See Repoint a vCenter Server Node to a New Domain for instructions of this type of repointing. In this case, there is no replication partner.
### Repoint a Single vCenter Server Node to an Existing Domain without a Replication Partner
You can repoint a single vCenter Server from one Single Sign-On domain to an existing Single Sign-On domain without a replication partner. Each Single Sign-On domain contains a single vCenter Server.
See Figure 5-1. Repointing a Single vCenter Server from One Domain to an Existing Domain for an example of repointing a single vCenter Server from one domain to another existing domain. This is one of many ways to create an Enhanced Linked Mode node. In this case, there is no replication.
**Prerequisites**
- Repointing is only supported with vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1 and later.
- You must repoint to a vCenter Server that is of the same version.
## Repoint a vCenter Server Node to an Existing Domain with a Replication Partner
You can repoint a vCenter Server from one Single Sign-On domain to an existing domain using a replication partner. See Figure 5-2. Repointing a vCenter Server from One Domain to an Existing Domain for an example of repointing to an existing domain. In this case, there is replication.
## Prerequisites
- Repointing is only supported with vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1 and later.
- You must repoint to a vCenter Server that is of the same version.
- To ensure no loss of data, take a file-based backup of each node before proceeding with repointing the vCenter Server.
## Procedure
1. Shut down the node (for example, Node C) that is being repointed (moved to a different domain).
2. Decommission the vCenter Server node that is being repointed. For example, to decommission Node C, log into Node B (on the original domain) and run the following command:
```
cmsso-util unregister --node-pnid Node_C_FQDN --username Node_B_sso_administrator@sso_domain.com --passwd Node_B_sso_adminuser_password
```
After unregistering Node C, services are restarted. References to Node C are deleted from Node B and any other nodes that were linked with Node C on the original domain.
3. Power on Node C to begin the repointing process.
4. (Optional) Run the pre-check mode command. The pre-check mode fetches the tagging (tags and categories) and authorization (roles and privileges) data from the vCenter Server. Pre-check does not migrate any data, but checks for conflicts between the source and destination vCenter Server. For example, run the pre-check with the following CLI:
```
cmsso-util domain-repoint -m pre-check --src-emb-admin Administrator --replication-partner-fqdn FQDN_of_destination_node --replication-partner-admin PSC_Admin_of_destination_node --dest-domain-name destination_PSC_domain
```
Note: Pre-check is not required if a replication partner does not exist (repointing to a newly created domain). The pre-check writes the conflicts to the `/storage/domain-data` directory.
5. (Optional) Check conflicts and apply resolutions for all conflicts or apply a separate resolution for each conflict. The conflict resolutions are:
- Copy: Create a duplicate copy of the data in the target domain.
- Skip: Skips copying the data in the target domain.
- Merge: Merges the conflict without creating duplicates.
Note: The default resolution mode for Tags and Authorization conflicts is Copy, unless overridden in the conflict files generated during pre-check.
6. Run the execute command. In execute mode, the data generated during the pre-check mode is read and imported to the target node. Then, the vCenter Server is repointed to the target domain. For example, run the execute command with the following:
```
cmsso-util domain-repoint -m execute --src-emb-admin Administrator --replication-partner-fqdn FQDN_of_destination_node --replication-partner-admin destination_node_PSC_Admin_user_name --dest-domain-name destination_PSC_domain
```
## Repoint a vCenter Server Node to a New Domain
You can repoint a vCenter Server from an existing domain to a newly created domain. See Figure 5-3. Repointing a vCenter Server from One Domain to a New Domain for an example of repointing to a new domain. In this case, there is no replication partner.
## Prerequisites
- Repointing is only supported with vCenter Server 6.7 Update 1 and later.
- You must repoint to a vCenter Server that is of the same version.
- To ensure no loss of data, take a file-based backup and a snapshot in powered-off state of each node before proceeding with repointing the vCenter Server.
## Procedure
1. Shut down the node (for example, Node C) that is being repointed (moved to a different domain).
## 2 Decommission the vCenter Server node that is being repointed.
For example, to decommission Node C, log into Node B (on the original domain) and run the following command:
```bash
cmsso-util unregister --node-pnid Node_C_FQDN --username Node_B_sso_administrator@sso_domain.com --passwd Node_B_sso_adminuser_password
```
After unregistering Node C, services are restarted. References to Node C are deleted from Node B and any other nodes that were linked with Node C on the original domain.
## 3 Power on Node C to begin the repointing process.
## 4 Run the execute command.
In execute mode, the data generated during the pre-check mode is read and imported to the target node. Then, the vCenter Server is repointed to the target domain. For example, repointing with no replication partner (repointing to a new domain), run the execute command with the following:
```bash
cmsso-util domain-repoint -m execute --src-emb-admin Administrator --dest-domain-name destination_PSC_domain
```
See **Syntax of the Domain Repoint Command** for argument definitions for the `cmsso-util domain-repoint` command.
### Syntax of the Domain Repoint Command
You can use command arguments to set the execution parameters of the domain-repoint command. The `cmsso-util domain-repoint` CLI repoints vCenter Server from one domain to another. You can add a space-separated list of arguments to the CLI repoint command.
Use the following command to repoint a vCenter Server to another vCenter Server node:
```bash
cmsso-util domain-repoint -m execute --src-emb-admin Administrator --replication-partner-fqdn FQDN_of_destination_node --replication-partner-admin destination_node_PSC_Admin_user_name --dest-domain-name destination_PSC_domain
```
| Argument | Description |
|-----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| -m, --mode | mode can be pre-check or execute. The pre-check argument runs the command in pre-check mode. The execute argument runs the command in execute mode. |
| -spa, --src-psc-admin | SSO administrator user name for the source vCenter Server. Do not append the @domain. |
| -dpf, --dest-psc-fqdn | The FQDN of the vCenter Server to repoint. |
| -dpa, --dest-psc-admin | SSO administrator user name for the destination vCenter Server. Do not append @domain. |
| -ddn, --dest-domain-name | SSO domain name of the destination vCenter Server. |
| -dpr, --dest-psc-rhttps | (Optional) HTTPS port for the destination vCenter Server. If not set, the default 443 is used. |
| -dvf, --dest-vc-fqdn | The FQDN of the vCenter Server pointing to a destination vCenter Server. The vCenter Server is used to check for component data conflicts in the pre-check mode. If not provided, conflict checks are skipped and the default resolution (COPY) is applied for any conflicts found during the import process. |
| -sea, --src-emb-admin | Administrator for the vCenter Server with embedded vCenter Server. Do not append @domain to the administrator id. |
| -rpf, --replication-partner-fqdn | (Optional) The FQDN of the replication partner node to which the vCenter Server is replicated. |
| -rpr, --replication-partner-rhttps | (Optional) The HTTPS port for the replication node. If not set, the default is 443. |
| -rpa, --replication-partner-admin | (Optional) SSO administrator user name of the replication partner vCenter Server. |
| -dvr, --dest-vc-rhttps | (Optional) The HTTPS port for the vCenter Server pointing to the destination vCenter Server. If not set, the default 443 is used. |
| --ignore-snapshot | (Optional) Ignore snapshot warnings. |
| --no-check-certs | (Optional) Ignore certification validations. |
| --debug | (Optional) Retrieves command execution detail. |
| -h, --help | (Optional) Displays the help message for the `cmsso-util domain repoint` command. |
### Understanding Tagging and Authorization Conflicts
When you run the domain repoint command in pre-check mode, data from the vCenter Server is exported, examined, and conflicts are written to a file.
The following data is exported to the `/storage/domain-data/` or `ProgramData/VMWare/vCenterServerdata/domain-data` folder:
- All_Privileges.json
- All_Roles.json
- All_TagCategories.json
- All_Tags.json
These files contain all the data (Authorization and Tagging) from the vCenter Server on which this command was run.
If a secondary vCenter Server is provided using the `-dvf` or `--dest-vc-fqdn` option, any conflicts are also exported to the same folder:
- Conflicts_Roles.json
- Conflicts_TagCategories.json
- Conflicts_Tags.json
### Sample Conflict File
```json
{
"global": {
"resolution": "MERGE|SKIP|COPY",
"description": "Default resolution option used to resolve Role Conflicts is COPY. The conflicts list describes the differences between Role entities on source and target vCenter Server. If the source information represents an empty JSON array, it simply means that all the entity attributes from source and target are identical. If the source lists few entries, it means that only these entity attributes are missing from the target. If the target lists few entries, it means that only these entity attributes are missing from the source. Though a global resolution can be set, it can also be overridden at each conflict level by providing individual resolution mode."
},
"conflicts-count": 1,
"conflicts-list": {
"NoCryptoAdmin": {
"source": {
"privileges": "[]"
},
"target": {
"privileges": "[Group-1.SamplePriv-1, Group-1.SamplePriv-4, Group-2.SamplePriv-10, Group-2.SamplePriv-3, Group-2.SamplePriv-7, Group-3.SamplePriv-2, Group-3.SamplePriv-9]"
},
"resolution": ""
}
}
}
```
The parts of the sample conflict files are:
- **description**: Provides the details on how the respective conflicts file is read and understood.
- **source and target**: JSON objects that list only the differences between the source and target vCenter Server objects.
- **resolution**: User supplies one valid resolution. Valid resolutions are MERGE, COPY, and SKIP.
To specify the resolution for handling conflicts, you can provide a default resolution option for all conflicts in the `"global": "resolution" = "MERGE|SKIP|COPY"` section. If you do not provide a valid global resolution type for resolution or leave it unedited, the system uses COPY as the default resolution option.
You can also provide a valid resolution option for each of the conflicts by editing the resolution property at each conflict level, which overrides the global resolution option.
## Table 5-1. Conflict Types
## Conflict
Properties used to compare Category Objects
### Conflict Types
Conflicting Properties
### Conflict Resolution Options
**Role conflict**
- n name: Name of the category.
- n privilegeId: List of privileges for the role.
RoleName conflict occurs while importing roles and a role with the same name exists in the target vCenter Server but with different privileges.
Properties that can be conflicting for RoleName conflict type can be Privileges.
- n COPY. A copy of the conflicting role is created in the target vCenter Server, with –-copy appended to the role name. The new role is created with a new role ID with the same set of privilege IDs. The new role ID is updated in the VPX_ACCESS table. The new role ID is applicable for both role name conflict and role ID conflict.
*Note*
The default resolution option to resolve Role conflicts is COPY.
- n MERGE. The MERGE option is resolved in the following sequence:
a If the source vCenter Server has a role with the same name and privilege list as a role in the target vCenter Server, but the role IDs are different, the role ID from the target vCenter Server is used and updated in the VPX_ACCESS table.
b If the source vCenter Server has a role with the same name as a role in the target vCenter Server, but with a different privilege list, then the privilege lists for both roles are merged.
- n SKIP. Do nothing. The specific role is skipped.
**Tag Category conflict:** A category name must be unique
- n name: Name of the category.
Only one type of conflict can be seen while importing Tag Categories, CategoryName
Properties that can be conflicting for conflict type CategoryName
- n cardinality: Cardinality of Category, either Single or Multiple.
- n associableEntityType: List of vCenter Server object that can be associated with a tag from this category. A value of All indicates all vCenter Server objects.
This conflict indicates that a category with the same name exists in the target vCenter Server but with different properties (cardinality or associableEntityType).
*Conflict can be at least one of two types: Cardinality or AssociableTypes.*
- n COPY. A copy of the conflicting category is created in the target vCenter Server, with –-copy appended to the category name. The new category is created with the same property name as in the source vCenter Server. All the tags that were present under this category are imported under the newly created CategoryCopy.
*Note*
The default resolution option to resolve CategoryName conflicts is COPY.
- n MERGE. Conflicting properties are merged with the category that is already present in the SSO. Properties are merged as follows:
a Description. The description that is already present is used.
b Cardinality. Cardinality cannot shrink. If there is a cardinality conflict, the cardinality is set to multiple. It cannot be reduced to single.
c AssociableTypes. If either the associableEntityType values are null, it is set to null.
- n SKIP. Do nothing. All tags are imported under the category that exists.
**Tags Conflict:** A tag object always belongs to a category Object. A tag Name must be unique only
- n name
- n description
Only one type of conflict can be seen while importing tags: TagName conflict. This conflict indicates that a Tag with the same name exists under the same category and in the target vCenter Server but with different properties.
Properties that can be conflicting for a conflict of type: TagName can be Description.
- n COPY. A copy of the conflicting tag is created in the target vCenter Server, with –-copy appended to the tag name. Take the MoRef(Internal tag ID) of the newly created tag and update the tag association if necessary.
*Note*
The default resolution option to resolve CategoryName conflicts is COPY.
- n MERGE. Keep the existing description. Take the MoRef(Internal Tag ID) and update one or more Tag Associations if necessary.
- n SKIP. Do nothing. Do not create this tag. Clean up any Tag Associations.
## vCenter Server Domain Repoint License Considerations
Domain repointing copies license keys to a new domain. Copying the license keys ensures that valid licensing of all assets is maintained after repointing.
vCenter Server tracks license usage on a per domain basis. If a key is used in more than one domain, you must ensure that the aggregate use of the key does not exceed its capacity. To simplify your license management, remove each license copied to a second domain and assign a new license to assets.
Consider the following two cases:
- n License keys that are no longer in use (that is, assigned to assets) in the original domain post repointing.
- n License keys that are in use (that is, assigned to assets) in multiple domains.
### License Keys Not in Use in a Domain
If after completing repointing, a license key appears in more than one domain, but is not in use in some of those domains, you can remove the license key from any domain in which it is not in use. See "Remove Licenses" in vCenter Server and Host Management for instructions on how to remove the licenses in vCenter Server.
### License Keys in Use in Multiple Domains
If after completing repointing, a license key is in use (that is, assigned to assets) in more than one domain, to remove the license key from all but one domain, first a different license key must be assigned to each asset in domains from which the license key will be removed. Two common approaches:
- n If you have other license keys available with sufficient unused capacity, you might use these other keys in place of a license key to be removed. See "Assign a License to Multiple Assets" in vCenter Server and Host Management to assign licenses in vCenter Server.
- n You might divide the license keys used in more than one domain into separate license keys, one for each domain. To divide the license keys, see the VMware knowledge base article at [http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006972](http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006972). To determine the capacity to be included in each of the license keys into which the original is divided, see "Viewing Licensing Information" in vCenter Server and Host Management to view the usage of the license key in vCenter Server for each of the domains.
Each of the resulting license keys can then be added to a different domain and assigned in vCenter Server to assets previously licensed with the original license key. See "Create New Licenses" in vCenter Server and Host Management to create licenses and "Assign a License to Multiple Assets" in vCenter Server and Host Management to assign a license to multiple assets.
After different licenses are assigned to all assets, the original license key, which is no longer valid, can be removed from all the domains using vCenter Server. See "Remove Licenses" in vCenter Server and Host Management.
## Troubleshooting vCenter Server Installation or Deployment
The vCenter Server deployment troubleshooting topics provide solutions to problems that you might encounter during the vCenter Server appliance deployment process.
## Collecting Logs for Troubleshooting a vCenter Server Installation or Upgrade
You can collect installation or upgrade log files for vCenter Server. If an installation or upgrade fails, checking the log files can help you identify the source of the failure. You can also collect deployment log files for vCenter Server.
### What to read next
- Retrieve Installation Logs Manually
- Collect Deployment Log Files for the vCenter Server Appliance
- Export a vCenter Server Support Bundle for Troubleshooting
## Retrieve Installation Logs Manually
You can retrieve the installation log files manually for examination.
### Procedure
1. Navigate to the installation log file locations:
- `%PROGRAMDATA%\VMware\vCenterServer\logs` directory, usually `C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\logs`
- `%TEMP%` directory, usually `C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp`
The files in the `%TEMP%` directory include `vc-install.txt`, `vminst.log`, `pkgmgr.log`, `pkgmgr-comp-msi.log`, and `vim-vcs-msi.log`.
2. Open the installation log files in a text editor for examination.
## Collect Deployment Log Files for the vCenter Server Appliance
If the vCenter Server appliance deployment fails, you can retrieve the log files and examine them for the reason of the failure. The full path to the log files is displayed in the vCenter Server appliance deployment wizard. In case of firstboot failure, you can download the support bundle on a Windows host machine and examine the log files to determine which firstboot script failed.
### Procedure
1. On the Windows machine that you use for deploying the vCenter Server appliance, navigate to the log files folder. You must have administrator privilege to access the log files, and the log files are available at:
- Windows: `C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Local\Temp\vcsaUiInstaller`
- Linux: `/tmp/vcsaUiInstaller`
- Mac: `/var/folders/**/**/**/vcsaUiInstaller`
2. Open the installation log files in a text editor for examination.
## Export a vCenter Server Support Bundle for Troubleshooting
You can export the support bundle of the vCenter Server instance in the appliance for troubleshooting using the URL displayed on the DCUI home screen. You can also collect the support bundle from the vCenter Server appliance Bash shell by running the `vc-support.sh` script. The support bundle is exported in `.tgz` format.
### Procedure
1. Log in to the Windows host machine on which you want to download the bundle.
2. Open a web browser and enter the URL to the support bundle displayed in the DCUI.
```
https://appliance-fully-qualified-domain-name:443/appliance/support-bundle
```
3. Enter the user name and password of the root user.
4. Click Enter. The support bundle is downloaded as `.tgz` file on your Windows machine.
5. (Optional) To determine which firstboot script failed, examine the `firstbootStatus.json` file. If you ran the `vc-support.sh` script in the vCenter Server appliance Bash shell, to examine the `firstbootStatus.json` file, run:
```
cat /var/log/firstboot/firstbootStatus.json
```