vSphere Installation and Setup
vSphere 5.5
This document supports the version of each product listed and
supports all subsequent versions until the document is
replaced by a new edition. To check for more recent editions
of this document, see http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.
EN-001266-02
vSphere Installation and Setup
2 VMware, Inc.
You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware Web site at:
http://www.vmware.com/support/
The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates.
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Palo Alto, CA 94304
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Contents
About vSphere Installation and Setup 7
Updated Information 9
1
Introduction to vSphere Installation and Setup 11
Overview of the vSphere Installation and Setup Process 11
2
System Requirements 13
ESXi Hardware Requirements 13
Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service,
and vCenter Single Sign-On 17
vCenter Server Software Requirements 22
vSphere Web Client Software Requirements 22
Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging 23
Required Ports for vCenter Server 23
Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance 25
Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80 26
DNS Requirements for vSphere 26
Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum Firmware Versions 27
3
Before You Install vCenter Server 29
Preparing vCenter Server Databases 30
Prerequisites for Installing vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service, and vCenter Server 49
How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects vCenter Server Installation 51
vCenter Single Sign-On Deployment Modes 52
vCenter Single Sign-On and High Availability 54
vCenter Single Sign-On Components 56
Setting the vCenter Server Administrator User 56
Authenticating to the vCenter Server Environment 57
How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects Log In Behavior 57
Identity Sources for vCenter Server with vCenter Single Sign-On 58
Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network 59
Download the vCenter Server Installer 61
Using a User Account for Running vCenter Server 61
Installing vCenter Server on IPv6 Machines 61
JDBC URL Formats for the vCenter Server Database 62
Running the vCenter Server Installer from a Network Drive 63
Required Information for Installing or Upgrading vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service,
vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client 63
Download the vCenter Server Installer 68
Microsoft SQL Database Set to Unsupported Compatibility Mode Causes vCenter Server
Installation or Upgrade to Fail 69
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Installing vCenter Server 71
vCenter Server Installation and Sign-In Process 71
vCenter Server Components and Support Tools 74
Download the vCenter Server Installer 75
Install vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter
Server by Using Simple Install 75
Use Custom Install to Install vCenter Server and Required Components 78
Add a vCenter Single Sign-On Identity Source 87
Install or Upgrade vCenter Server Java Components Separately 92
Install or Upgrade vCenter Server tc Server Separately 93
vCenter Single Sign-On Installation Fails 93
Download and Deploy the VMware vCenter Server Appliance 94
5
After You Install vCenter Server 101
Install vCenter Server Components 102
Creating vCenter Server Linked Mode Groups 111
Configuring VMware vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server 116
VMware vCenter Management Webservices Service Fails to Start 118
Back Up the Inventory Service Database on Windows 118
Restore an Inventory Service Database Backup on Windows 118
Back Up the Inventory Service Database on Linux 119
Restore an Inventory Service Database Backup on Linux 119
Reset the vCenter Inventory Service Database 120
Enable IPv6 Support for vCenter Inventory Service 121
6
Before You Install ESXi 123
Options for Installing ESXi 123
Media Options for Booting the ESXi Installer 125
Using Remote Management Applications 136
Required Information for ESXi Installation 136
7
Installing ESXi 139
Installing ESXi Interactively 139
Installing, Upgrading, or Migrating Hosts Using a Script 142
Installing ESXi Using vSphere Auto Deploy 157
Using vSphere ESXi Image Builder CLI 225
8
Setting Up ESXi 247
ESXi Autoconfiguration 248
About the Direct Console ESXi Interface 248
Set the Password for the Administrator Account 251
Configuring the BIOS Boot Settings 251
Host Fails to Boot After You Install ESXi in UEFI Mode 252
Network Access to Your ESXi Host 253
Configure the Network Settings on a Host That Is Not Attached to the Network 253
Managing ESXi Remotely 254
Configuring Network Settings 254
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Storage Behavior 258
View System Logs 261
Configure Syslog on ESXi Hosts 262
Enable Lockdown Mode Using the Direct Console 263
Enable Lockdown Mode Using the vSphere Web Client 263
Enable ESXi Shell and SSH Access with the Direct Console User Interface 264
Set the Host Image Profile Acceptance Level 264
Reset the System Configuration 265
Remove All Custom Packages on ESXi 266
Disable Support for Non-ASCII Characters in Virtual Machine File and Directory Names 266
Disable ESXi 266
9
After You Install and Set Up ESXi 267
Managing the ESXi Host with the vSphere Web Client 267
Licensing ESXi Hosts 267
Index 269
Contents
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vSphere Installation and Setup
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About vSphere Installation and Setup
vSphere Installation and Setup describes how to install new configurations of VMware® vCenter Server and
ESXi.
Intended Audience
vSphere Installation and Setup is intended for anyone who needs to install and set up vCenter Server and
ESXi.
This information is written for experienced Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with
virtual machine technology and datacenter operations.
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vSphere Installation and Setup
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Updated Information
This vSphere Installation and Setup publication is updated with each release of the product or when necessary.
This table provides the update history of vSphere Installation and Setup.
Revision Description
EN-001266-02 Corrected location of dbschema directory in the following topics:
n
“Configure an Oracle Database User,” on page 43.
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“Use a Script to Create a Local or Remote Oracle Database,” on page 44.
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“(Optional) Use a Script to Create the Oracle Database Schema,” on page 44.
.
EN-001266-01 Updated Table 2-8.
EN-001266-00 Initial release.
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vSphere Installation and Setup
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Introduction to vSphere Installation
and Setup 1
vSphere 5.x provides various options for installation and setup. To ensure a successful vSphere deployment,
understand the installation and setup options, and the sequence of tasks required.
You have several options for installing and setting up ESXi, for managing vSphere with vCenter Server and
the vSphere Web Client, and for the database setup that you use with vCenter Server.
Overview of the vSphere Installation and Setup Process
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.
NOTE This overview does not apply to the vCenter Server Appliance. To deploy the vCenter Server
Appliance, see “Download and Deploy the VMware vCenter Server Appliance,” on page 94.
The following illustration shows the order of installation for vCenter Server components.
vCenter Server
vCenter Inventory Service vCenter ServervSphere Web ClientvCenter Single Sign-On
Installing vSphere includes the following tasks:
1 Read the vSphere release notes.
2 Verify that your system meets vSphere hardware and software requirements. See Chapter 2, “System
Requirements,” on page 13.
3 Install vCenter Server.
a (Optional) Set up the vCenter Server database. See “Preparing vCenter Server Databases,” on
page 30.
NOTE For small installations (up to 5 hosts and 50 virtual machines), you can use the bundled
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express database, which you can choose to have the vCenter Server
installer create during the vCenter Server installation.
b Review the topics in Chapter 3, “Before You Install vCenter Server,” on page 29.
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c Use the topic “Required Information for Installing or Upgrading vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory
Service, vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client,” on page 63 to create a worksheet with the
information you need for installation.
d Install vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client, Inventory Service, vCenter Server, and
other vCenter Server support tools as appropriate. Connect to vCenter Server from the
vSphere Web Client. See Chapter 4, “Installing vCenter Server,” on page 71 and Chapter 5, “After
You Install vCenter Server,” on page 101.
e (Optional) Create a Linked Mode Group or join vCenter Server to a Linked Mode Group. See
“Creating vCenter Server Linked Mode Groups,” on page 111.
4 Install ESXi.
a Review the topics in Chapter 6, “Before You Install ESXi,” on page 123.
b Determine the ESXi installation option to use. See “Options for Installing ESXi,” on page 123.
c Determine where you will locate and boot the ESXi installer. See “Media Options for Booting the
ESXi Installer,” on page 125. If you are PXE-booting the installer, verify that your network PXE
infrastructure is properly set up. See “PXE Booting the ESXi Installer,” on page 129.
d Use the topic “Required Information for ESXi Installation,” on page 136 to create a worksheet with
the information you will need when you install ESXi.
e Install ESXi, using the installation option you chose:
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“Installing ESXi Interactively,” on page 139
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“Installing, Upgrading, or Migrating Hosts Using a Script,” on page 142
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“Installing ESXi Using vSphere Auto Deploy,” on page 157
5 Configure ESXi boot and network settings, the direct console, and other settings. See Chapter 8, “Setting
Up ESXi,” on page 247 and Chapter 9, “After You Install and Set Up ESXi,” on page 267.
6 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.
Optionally, you can install the vSphere Syslog Collector to collect logs from all hosts. See “Providing
Sufficient Space for System Logging,” on page 23, “Configure Syslog on ESXi Hosts,” on page 262,
and “Install or Upgrade vSphere Syslog Collector,” on page 108.
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System Requirements 2
Systems running vCenter Server and ESXi instances must meet specific hardware and operating system
requirements.
If you are using Auto Deploy to provision ESXi hosts, see also “Preparing for vSphere Auto Deploy,” on
page 167.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“ESXi Hardware Requirements,” on page 13
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“Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client, vCenter Inventory Service, and
vCenter Single Sign-On,” on page 17
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“vCenter Server Software Requirements,” on page 22
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“vSphere Web Client Software Requirements,” on page 22
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“Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging,” on page 23
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“Required Ports for vCenter Server,” on page 23
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“Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance,” on page 25
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“Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80,” on page 26
n
“DNS Requirements for vSphere,” on page 26
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“Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum Firmware Versions,” on page 27
ESXi Hardware Requirements
Make sure the host meets the minimum hardware configurations supported by ESXi 5.5.
Hardware and System Resources
To install and use ESXi 5.5, your hardware and system resources must meet the following requirements:
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Supported server platform. For a list of supported platforms, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
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ESXi 5.5 will install and run only on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs.
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ESXi 5.5 requires a host machine with at least two cores.
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ESXi 5.5 supports only LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions.
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ESXi 5.5 requires the NX/XD bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS.
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ESXi supports a broad range of x64 multicore processors. For a complete list of supported processors,
see the VMware compatibility guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
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ESXi requires a minimum of 4GB of physical RAM. Provide at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage
of ESXi features and run virtual machines in typical production environments.
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To support 64-bit virtual machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must
be enabled on x64 CPUs.
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One or more Gigabit or 10Gb Ethernet controllers. For a list of supported network adapter models, see
the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
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Any combination of one or more of the following controllers:
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Basic SCSI controllers. Adaptec Ultra-160 or Ultra-320, LSI Logic Fusion-MPT, or most
NCR/Symbios SCSI.
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RAID controllers. Dell PERC (Adaptec RAID or LSI MegaRAID), HP Smart Array RAID, or IBM
(Adaptec) ServeRAID controllers.
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SCSI disk or a local, non-network, RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the virtual machines.
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For Serial ATA (SATA), a disk connected through supported SAS controllers or supported on-board
SATA controllers. SATA disks will be considered remote, not local. These disks will not be used as a
scratch partition by default because they are seen as remote.
NOTE You cannot connect a SATA CD-ROM device to a virtual machine on an ESXi 5.5 host. To use the
SATA CD-ROM device, you must use IDE emulation mode.
Storage Systems
For a list of supported storage systems, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility. ESXi 5.5 supports installing on and booting from the
following storage systems:
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SATA disk drives. SATA disk drives connected behind supported SAS controllers or supported onboard SATA controllers.
Supported SAS controllers include:
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LSI1068E (LSISAS3442E)
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LSI1068 (SAS 5)
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IBM ServeRAID 8K SAS controller
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Smart Array P400/256 controller
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Dell PERC 5.0.1 controller
Supported on-board SATA include:
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Intel ICH9
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NVIDIA MCP55
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ServerWorks HT1000
NOTE ESXi does not support using local, internal SATA drives on the host server to create VMFS
datastores that are shared across multiple ESXi hosts.
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Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives. Supported for installing ESXi and for storing virtual machines
on VMFS partitions.
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Dedicated SAN disk on Fibre Channel or iSCSI
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USB devices. Supported for installing ESXi.
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Software Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). See “Installing and Booting ESXi with Software FCoE,”
on page 136.
ESXi Booting Requirements
vSphere 5.5 supports booting ESXi hosts from the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). With UEFI
you can boot systems from hard drives, CD-ROM drives, or USB media. Network booting or provisioning
with VMware Auto Deploy requires the legacy BIOS firmware and is not available with UEFI.
ESXi can boot from a disk larger than 2TB provided that the system firmware and the firmware on any addin card that you are using support it. See the vendor documentation.
NOTE Changing the boot type from legacy BIOS to UEFI after you install ESXi 5.5 might cause the host to
fail to boot. In this case, the host displays an error message similar to: Not a VMware boot bank. Changing
the host boot type between legacy BIOS and UEFI is not supported after you install ESXi 5.5.
Storage Requirements for ESXi 5.5 Installation
Installing ESXi 5.5 requires a boot device that is a minimum of 1GB in size. When booting from a local disk
or SAN/iSCSI LUN, a 5.2GB disk is required to allow for the creation of the VMFS volume and a 4GB scratch
partition on the boot device. If a smaller disk or LUN is used, the installer will attempt to allocate a scratch
region on a separate local disk. If a local disk cannot be found the scratch partition, /scratch, will be located
on the ESXi host ramdisk, linked to /tmp/scratch. You can reconfigure /scratch to use a separate disk or
LUN. For best performance and memory optimization, VMware recommends that you do not
leave /scratch on the ESXi host ramdisk.
To reconfigure /scratch, see “Set the Scratch Partition from the vSphere Web Client,” on page 260.
Due to the I/O sensitivity of USB and SD devices the installer does not create a scratch partition on these
devices. As such, there is no tangible benefit to using large USB/SD devices as ESXi uses only the first 1GB.
When installing on USB or SD devices, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local
disk or datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found, /scratch is placed on the ramdisk. You should
reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore following the installation.
In Auto Deploy installations, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local disk or
datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found /scratch is placed on ramdisk. You should
reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore following the installation.
For environments that boot from a SAN or use Auto Deploy, it is not necessary to allocate a separate LUN
for each ESXi host. You can co-locate the scratch regions for many ESXi hosts onto a single LUN. The
number of hosts assigned to any single LUN should be weighed against the LUN size and the I/O behavior
of the virtual machines.
Recommendation for Enhanced ESXi Performance
To enhance performance, install ESXi on a robust system with more RAM than the minimum required and
with multiple physical disks.
For ESXi system requirements, see “ESXi Hardware Requirements,” on page 13. See also the technical
papers on vSphere 5 performance at http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/cat/91,203,96.
Chapter 2 System Requirements
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Table 2‑1. Recommendations for Enhanced Performance
System Element Recommendation
RAM ESXi hosts require more RAM than typical servers. Provide
at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage of ESXi features
and run virtual machines in typical production
environments. An ESXi host must have sufficient RAM to
run concurrent virtual machines. The following examples
are provided to help you calculate the RAM required by
the virtual machines running on the ESXi host.
Operating four virtual machines with
Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Windows XP requires at least
3GB of RAM for baseline performance. This figure includes
approximately 1024MB for the virtual machines, 256MB
minimum for each operating system as recommended by
vendors.
Running these four virtual machines with 512MB RAM
requires that the ESXi host have approximately 4GB RAM,
which includes 2048MB for the virtual machines.
These calculations do not take into account possible
memory savings from using variable overhead memory for
each virtual machine. See vSphere Resource Management .
Dedicated Fast Ethernet adapters for virtual machines Place the management network and virtual machine
networks on different physical network cards. Dedicated
Gigabit Ethernet cards for virtual machines, such as Intel
PRO 1000 adapters, improve throughput to virtual
machines with high network traffic.
Disk location Place all data that your virtual machines use on physical
disks allocated specifically to virtual machines.
Performance is better when you do not place your virtual
machines on the disk containing the ESXi boot image. Use
physical disks that are large enough to hold disk images
that all the virtual machines use.
VMFS5 partitioning The ESXi installer creates the initial VMFS volumes on the
first blank local disk found. To add disks or modify the
original configuration, use the vSphere Web Client. This
practice ensures that the starting sectors of partitions are
64K-aligned, which improves storage performance.
NOTE For SAS-only environments, the installer might not
format the disks. For some SAS disks, it is not possible to
identify whether the disks are local or remote. After the
installation, you can use the vSphere Web Client to set up
VMFS.
Processors Faster processors improve ESXi performance. For certain
workloads, larger caches improve ESXi performance.
Hardware compatibility Use devices in your server that are supported by ESXi 5.5
drivers. See the Hardware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
vSphere Installation and Setup
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Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client ,
vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Single Sign-On
vCenter Server host machines must meet hardware requirements.
vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service,
and vCenter Server Hardware Requirements
You can install vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter
Server on the same host machine (as with vCenter Simple Install) or on different machines. See Table 2-2.
The follosing tables list the hardware requirements for vCenter Single Sign-On and Inventory Service,
running on separate host machines.
n
Table 2-3
n
Table 2-4
If you use Custom Install to install vCenter Single Sign-On, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server
on the same host machine, the vCenter Single Sign-On, and Inventory Service memory and disk storage
requirements are in addition to the requirements for vCenter Server. See Table 2-5.
Table 2‑2. Minimum Hardware Requirements for Simple Install Deployment of vCenter Single Sign-On, the
vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server
Host Hardware for Simple Install Deployment Minimum Requirement
Processor Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory 12GB.
Memory requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server.
vCenter Server includes several Java services: VMware
VirtualCenter Management Webservices (tc Server),
Inventory Service, and Profile-Driven Storage Service.
When you install vCenter Server, you select the size of
your vCenter Server inventory to allocate memory for these
services. The inventory size determines the maximum JVM
heap settings for the services. You can adjust this setting
after installation if the number of hosts in your
environment changes. See the recommendations in
Table 2-7.
Disk storage 100GB recommended.
40-60GB of free disk space are required after installation,
depending on the size of your inventory. You should
provide more space to allow for future growth of your
inventory.
Disk storage requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server,
depending on the size of the database.
In vCenter Server 5.x, the default size for vCenter Server
logs is 450MB larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure
the disk space allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this
increase.
Network speed 1Gbps
Chapter 2 System Requirements
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Table 2‑3. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Single Sign-On, Running on a Separate Host
Machine from vCenter Server
vCenter Single Sign-On Hardware Requirement
Processor Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory 3GB. If vCenter Single Sign-On runs on the same host
machine as vCenter Server, see Table 2-2 or Table 2-5.
Disk storage 2GB.
Network speed 1Gbps
Table 2‑4. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Inventory Service, Running on a Separate Host
Machine from vCenter Server
vCenter Inventory Service Hardware Requirement
Processor Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory 3GB. If vCenter Inventory Service runs on the same host
machine as vCenter Server, see Table 2-2 or Table 2-5.
Disk storage If vCenter Inventory Service runs on the same host
machine as vCenter Server, these requirements are in
addition to the disk space required for vCenter Server and
any other applications running on the vCenter Server host
machine. See Table 2-5.
Disk storage requirements for Inventory Service depend on
inventory size and the amount of activity in the virtual
machines in the inventory. At typical activity rates,
Inventory Service uses 6GB - 12GB of disk space for 15,000
virtual machines distributed among 1,000 hosts.
A high rate of activity (more than 20 percent of your virtual
machines changing per hour) results in write-ahead logs
(WAL) being written to disk to handle updates, instead of
in-line writes into existing disk usage. This high rate of
activity is often associated with Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure (VDI) use cases.
In the following guidelines for required disk space, a small
inventory is 1-100 hosts or 1-1000 virtual machines, and a
large inventory is more than 400 hosts or 4000 virtual
machines.
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Small inventory, low activity rate: 5GB.
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Small inventory, high activity rate: 15GB.
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Large inventory, low activity rate: 15GB.
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Large inventory, high activity rate: 40GB-60GB.
Network speed 1Gbps
Table 2‑5. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server
vCenter Server Hardware Requirement
CPU Two 64-bit CPUs or one 64-bit dual-core processor.
Processor 2.0GHz or faster Intel 64 or AMD 64 processor. The
Itanium (IA64) processor is not supported. Processor
requirements might be higher if the database runs on the
same machine.
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Table 2‑5. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server (Continued)
vCenter Server Hardware Requirement
Memory The amount of memory needed depends on your vCenter
Server configuration.
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If vCenter Server is installed on a different host
machine than vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service, 4GB of RAM are required.
n
If vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service are installed on the same host
machine (as with vCenter Simple Install), 10GB of
RAM are required.
Memory requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server.
vCenter Server includes several Java services: VMware
VirtualCenter Management Webservices (tc Server),
Inventory Service, and Profile-Driven Storage Service.
When you install vCenter Server, you select the size of
your vCenter Server inventory to allocate memory for these
services. The inventory size determines the maximum JVM
heap settings for the services. You can adjust this setting
after installation if the number of hosts in your
environment changes. See the recommendations in
Table 2-7.
Disk storage The amount of disk storage needed for the vCenter Server
installation depends on your vCenter Server configuration.
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If vCenter Server is installed on a different host
machine than vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service, 4GB are required.
n
If vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
Inventory Service are installed on the same host
machine (as with vCenter Simple Install), at least
40-60GB of free disk space are required after
installation, depending on the size of your inventory.
You should provide more space to allow for future
growth of your inventory. For guidelines about the
disk space required for vCenter Single Sign-On and
Inventory Service, see Table 2-3 and Table 2-4
Disk storage requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server,
depending on the size of those databases.
In vCenter Server 5.x, the default size for vCenter Server
logs is 450MB larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure
the disk space allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this
increase.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express disk Up to 2GB free disk space to decompress the installation
archive. Approximately 1.5GB of these files are deleted
after the installation is complete.
Network speed 1Gbps
NOTE Installing vCenter Server on a network drive or USB flash drive is not supported.
For the hardware requirements of your database, see your database documentation. The database
requirements are in addition to the vCenter Server requirements if the database and vCenter Server run on
the same machine.
Chapter 2 System Requirements
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vSphere Web Client Hardware Requirements
The vSphere Web Client has two components: A Java server and an Adobe Flex client application running in
a browser.
Table 2‑6. Hardware Requirements for the vSphere Web Client Server Component
vSphere Web Client Server Hardware Requirement
Memory At least 2GB: 1GB for the Java heap, and 1GB for
n
The resident code
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The stack for Java threads
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Global/bss segments for the Java process
CPU 2.00 GHz processor with 4 cores
Disk Storage At least 2GB free disk space
Networking Gigabit connection recommended
JVM heap settings for vCenter Server
The JVM heap settings for vCenter Server depend on your inventory size. See “Configuring VMware
vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server,” on page 116.
Table 2‑7. JVM Heap Settings for vCenter Server
vCenter Server
Inventory
VMware VirtualCenter
Management Webservices (tc
Server) Inventory Service
Profile-Driven
Storage Service
Small inventory (1-100
hosts or 1-1000 virtual
machines)
1GB 3GB 1GB
Medium inventory
(100-400 hosts or
1000-4000 virtual
machines)
2GB 6GB 2GB
Large inventory (More
than 400 hosts or 4000
virtual machines)
3GB 12GB 4GB
vSphere Installation and Setup
20 VMware, Inc.
VMware vCenter Server Appliance Hardware Requirements and
Recommendations
Table 2‑8. Hardware Requirements for VMware vCenter Server Appliance
VMware vCenter Server Appliance Hardware Requirement
Disk storage on the host machine For most deployments, the vCenter Server Appliance
requires at least 70GB of disk space, and is limited to a
maximum size of 125GB. The required disk space depends
on the size of your vCenter Server inventory. The vCenter
Server Appliance can be deployed with thin-provisioned
virtual disks that can grow to the maximum size of 125GB.
If the host machine does not have enough free disk space to
accommodate the growth of the vCenter Server Appliance
virtual disks, vCenter Server might cease operation, and
you will not be able to manage your vSphere environment.
Memory in the VMware vCenter Server Appliance Using the embedded PostgreSQL database, the vCenter
Server Appliance supports up to 100 hosts or 3000 virtual
machines, and has the following memory requirements
n
Very small inventory (10 or fewer hosts, 100 or fewer
virtual machines): at least 8GB.
n
Small inventory (10-50 hosts or 100-1500 virtual
machines): at least 16GB.
n
Medium inventory (the maximum inventory supported
with the embedded database; 50-100 hosts or 1500-3000
virtual machines): at least 24GB.
Using an external Oracle database, the vCenter Server
Appliance supports up to 1000 hosts or 10000 registered
virtual machines, and 10000 powered-on virtual machines,
and has the following memory requirements:
n
Very small inventory (10 or fewer hosts, 100 or fewer
virtual machines): at least 4GB.
n
Small inventory (10-100 hosts or 100-1000 virtual
machines): at least 8GB.
n
Medium inventory (100-400 hosts or 1000-4000 virtual
machines): at least 16GB.
n
Large inventory (More than 400 hosts or 4000 virtual
machines): at least 32GB.
For inventory and other configuration limits in the vCenter Server Appliance, see Configuration Maximums.
Table 2‑9. JVM Heap Settings for VMware vCenter Server Appliance
vCenter Server
Appliance Inventory
VMware VirtualCenter
Management Webservices (tc
Server) Inventory Service
Profile-Driven
Storage Service
Small inventory (1-100
hosts or 1-1000 virtual
machines)
512MB 3GB 1GB
Medium inventory
(100-400 hosts or
1000-4000 virtual
machines)
512MB 6GB 2GB
Large inventory (More
than 400 hosts or 4000
virtual machines)
1GB 12GB 4GB
See “Configuring VMware vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server,” on page 116.
Chapter 2 System Requirements
VMware, Inc. 21
vCenter Server Software Requirements
Make sure that your operating system supports vCenter Server. vCenter Server requires a 64-bit operating
system, and the 64-bit system DSN is required for vCenter Server to connect to its database.
For a list of supported operating systems, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
vCenter Server requires the Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1 Framework. If it is not installed on your system, the
vCenter Server installer installs it. The .NET 3.5 SP1 installation might require Internet connectivity to
download more files.
NOTE If your vCenter Server host machine uses a non-English operating system, install both the
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Language Pack through Windows
Update. Windows Update automatically selects the correct localized version for your operating system.
The .NET Framework installed through the vCenter Server installer includes only the English version.
vCenter Server 5.5 removes support for Windows Server 2003 as a host operating system. See the VMware
Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.
vCenter Server 5.5 removes support for Windows Server 2008 SP1 as a host operating system. Upgrade
Windows Server 2008 SP1 hosts to SP2 before upgrading vCenter Server to version 5.5. See the VMware
Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php and the Microsoft
Software Lifecycle Policy at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#ServicePackSupport.
If you plan to use the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express database that is bundled with vCenter Server,
Microsoft Windows Installer version 4.5 (MSI 4.5) is required on your system. You can download MSI 4.5
from the Microsoft Web site. You can also install MSI 4.5 directly from the vCenter Server autorun.exe
installer.
The VMware vCenter Server Appliance can be deployed only on hosts that are running ESX version 4.x or
ESXi version 4.x or later.
vSphere Web Client Software Requirements
Make sure that your browser supports the vSphere Web Client.
VMware has tested and supports the following guest operating systems and browser versions for the
vSphere Web Client.
Table 2‑10. Supported guest operating systems and browser versions for the vSphere Web Client .
Operating system Browser
Windows 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, 9 (64-bit only), and 10.
Mozilla Firefox: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
the vSphere 5.5 is produced.
Google Chrome: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
the vSphere 5.5 is produced.
Mac OS Mozilla Firefox: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
the vSphere 5.5 is produced.
Google Chrome: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
the vSphere 5.5 is produced.
Later versions of these browsers are likely to work, but have not been tested.
The vSphere Web Client requires the Adobe Flash Player version 11.5.0 or later to be installed with the
appropriate plug-in for your browser.
vSphere Installation and Setup
22 VMware, Inc.
Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging
ESXi 5.x uses a new log infrastructure. If your host is deployed with Auto Deploy, or if you set up a log
directory separate from the default location in a scratch directory on the VMFS volume, you might need to
change your current log size and rotation settings to ensure that enough space for system logging exists.
All vSphere components use this infrastructure. The default values for log capacity in this infrastructure
vary, depending on the amount of storage available and on how you have configured system logging. Hosts
that are deployed with Auto Deploy store logs on a RAM disk, which means that the amount of space
available for logs is small.
If your host is deployed with Auto Deploy, reconfigure your log storage in one of the following ways:
n
Redirect logs over the network to a remote collector.
n
Redirect logs to a NAS or NFS store.
You might also want to reconfigure log sizing and rotations for hosts that are installed to disk, if you
redirect logs to nondefault storage, such as a NAS or NFS store.
You do not need to reconfigure log storage for ESXi hosts that use the default configuration, which stores
logs in a scratch directory on the VMFS volume. For these hosts, ESXi 5.x autoconfigures logs to best suit
your installation, and provides enough space to accommodate log messages.
Table 2‑11. Recommended Minimum Size and Rotation Configuration for hostd, vpxa, and fdm Logs.
Log Maximum Log File Size
Number of Rotations to
Preserve Minimum Disk Space Required
Management Agent
(hostd)
10240KB 10 100MB
VirtualCenter Agent
(vpxa)
5120KB 10 50MB
vSphere HA agent (Fault
Domain Manager, fdm)
5120KB 10 50MB
For information about setting up a remote log server, see “Configure Syslog on ESXi Hosts,” on page 262
and “Install or Upgrade vSphere Syslog Collector,” on page 108.
Required Ports for vCenter Server
The VMware vCenter Server system must be able to send data to every managed host and receive data from
every vSphere Web Client. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the
source and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.
For information about ports required for the vCenter Server Appliance, see “Required Ports for the vCenter
Server Appliance,” on page 25.
VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated
ports for data from the vCenter Server system. If a firewall exists between any of these elements and
Windows firewall service is in use, the installer opens the ports during the installation. 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.
NOTE In Microsoft Windows Server 2008, a firewall is enabled by default.
Chapter 2 System Requirements
VMware, Inc. 23
Table 2‑12. Ports Required for Communication Between Components
Port Description
80 vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects requests to HTTPS
port 443. This redirection is useful if you accidentally use http://server instead of https://server.
If you use a custom Microsoft SQL database (not the bundled SQL Server 2008 database) that is
stored on the same host machine as the vCenter Server, port 80 is used by the SQL Reporting Service.
When you install vCenter Server, the installer will prompt you to change the HTTP port for vCenter
Server. Change the vCenter Server HTTP port to a custom value to ensure a successful installation.
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) also use port 80. See “Conflict Between vCenter Server
and IIS for Port 80,” on page 26.
389 This port must be open on the local and all remote instances of vCenter Server. This is the LDAP port
number for the Directory Services for the vCenter Server group. The vCenter Server system needs to
bind to port 389, even if you are not joining this vCenter Server instance to a Linked Mode group. If
another service is running on this port, it might be preferable to remove it or change its port to a
different port. You can run the LDAP service on any port from 1025 through 65535.
If this instance is serving as the Microsoft Windows Active Directory, change the port number from
389 to an available port from 1025 through 65535.
636 For vCenter Server Linked Mode, this is the SSL port of the local instance. If another service is
running on this port, it might be preferable to remove it or change its port to a different port. You can
run the SSL service on any port from 1025 through 65535.
902 The default port that the vCenter Server system uses to send data to managed hosts. Managed hosts
also send a regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to the vCenter Server system. This port must not be
blocked by firewalls between the server and the hosts or between hosts.
8080 Web Services HTTP. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
8443 Web Services HTTPS. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
60099 Web Service change service notification port
6501 Auto Deploy service
6502 Auto Deploy management
7005 vCenter Single Sign-On
7009 vCenter Single Sign-On
7080 vCenter Single Sign-On
7444 vCenter Single Sign-On HTTPS
9443 vSphere Web Client HTTPS
9090 vSphere Web Client HTTP
10080 vCenter Inventory Service HTTP
10443 vCenter Inventory Service HTTPS
10109 vCenter Inventory Service Management
10111 vCenter Inventory Service Linked Mode Communication
To have the vCenter Server system use a different port to receive vSphere Web Client data, see the vCenter
Server and Host Management documentation.
For a discussion of firewall configuration, see the vSphere Security documentation.
vSphere Installation and Setup
24 VMware, Inc.
Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance
The VMware vCenter Server system must be able to send data to every managed host and receive data from
every vSphere Web Client. For migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source
and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.
For information about ports required for vCenter Server on Windows, see “Required Ports for vCenter
Server,” on page 23.
VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated
ports for data from the vCenter Server system. The vCenter Server Appliance is preconfigured to use the
ports listed in Table 2-13. 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.
Table 2‑13. Ports Required for the vCenter Server Appliance
Port Description
80 vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects requests to HTTPS
port 443. This redirection is useful if you accidentally use http://server instead of https://server.
443 The vCenter Server system uses port 443 to monitor data transfer from SDK clients.
902 The default port that the vCenter Server system uses to send data to managed hosts. Managed hosts
also send a regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to the vCenter Server system. This port must not be
blocked by firewalls between the server and the hosts or between hosts.
8080 Web Services HTTP. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
8443 Web Services HTTPS. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
10080 vCenter Inventory Service HTTP
10443 vCenter Inventory Service HTTPS
10109 vCenter Inventory Service database
514 vSphere Syslog Collector server
1514 vSphere Syslog Collector server (SSL)
6500 Network coredump server (UDP)
6501 Auto Deploy service
6502 Auto Deploy management
9090 vSphere Web Client HTTP
9443 vSphere Web Client HTTPS
5480 vCenter Server Appliance Web user interface HTTPS
5489 vCenter Server Appliance Web user interface CIM service
22 System port for SSHD
To have the vCenter Server system use a different port to receive vSphere Web Client data, see the vCenter
Server and Host Management documentation.
For a discussion of firewall configuration, see the vSphere Security documentation.
Chapter 2 System Requirements
VMware, Inc. 25
Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80
vCenter Server and Microsoft Internet Information Service (IIS) both use port 80 as the default port for direct
HTTP connections. This conflict can cause vCenter Server to fail to restart after the installation of vSphere
Authentication Proxy.
Problem
vCenter Server fails to restart after the installation of vSphere Authentication Proxy is complete.
Cause
If you do not have IIS installed when you install vSphere Authentication Proxy, the installer prompts you to
install IIS. Because IIS uses port 80, which is the default port for vCenter Server direct HTTP connections,
vCenter Server fails to restart after the installation of vSphere Authentication Proxy is complete. See
“Required Ports for vCenter Server,” on page 23.
Solution
u
To resolve a conflict between IIS and vCenter Server for port 80, take one of the following actions.
Option Description
If you installed IIS before installing
vCenter Server
Change the port for vCenter Server direct HTTP connections from 80 to
another value.
If you installed vCenter Server
before installing IIS
Before restarting vCenter Server, change the binding port of the IIS default
Web site from 80 to another value.
DNS Requirements for vSphere
You install vCenter Server, like any other network server, on a machine with a fixed IP address and wellknown DNS name, so that clients can reliably access the service.
Assign a static IP address and host name to the Windows server that will host the vCenter Server system.
This IP address must have a valid (internal) domain name system (DNS) registration.
Ensure that the ESXi host management interface has a valid DNS resolution from the vCenter Server and all
vSphere Web Clients. Ensure that the vCenter Server has a valid DNS resolution from all ESXi hosts and all
vSphere Web Clients.
Ensure that the vCenter Server is installed on a machine that has a resolvable fully qualified domain name
(FQDN). To check that the FQDN is resolvable, type nslookup your_vCenter_Server_fqdn at a command line
prompt. If the FQDN is resolvable, the nslookup command returns the IP and name of the domain controller
machine.
Ensure that DNS reverse lookup returns a fully qualified domain name when queried with the IP address of
the vCenter Server. When you install vCenter Server, the installation of the web server component that
supports the vSphere Web Client fails if the installer cannot look up the fully qualified domain name of the
vCenter Server from its IP address. Reverse lookup is implemented using PTR records. To create a PTR
record, see the documentation for your vCenter Server host operating system.
If you use DHCP instead of a static IP address for vCenter Server, make sure that the vCenter Server
computer name is updated in the domain name service (DNS). Ping the computer name to test the
connection. For example, if the computer name is host-1.company.com, run the following command in the
Windows command prompt:
ping host-1.company.com
If you can ping the computer name, the name is updated in DNS.
vSphere Installation and Setup
26 VMware, Inc.
Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum
Firmware Versions
You can use remote management applications to install ESXi or for remote management of hosts.
Table 2‑14. Supported Remote Management Server Models and Firmware Versions
Remote Controller Make and
Model Firmware Version Java
Dell DRAC 6 1.54 (Build 15), 1.70 (Build 21) 1.6.0_24
Dell DRAC 5 1.0, 1.45, 1.51 1.6.0_20,1.6.0_203
Dell DRAC 4 1.75 1.6.0_23
HP ILO 1.81, 1.92 1.6.0_22, 1.6.0_23
HP ILO 2 1.8, 1.81 1.6.0_20, 1.6.0_23
IBM RSA 2 1.03, 1.2 1.6.0_22
Chapter 2 System Requirements
VMware, Inc. 27
vSphere Installation and Setup
28 VMware, Inc.
Before You Install vCenter Server 3
You can install vCenter Server on a physical system or on a virtual machine running on an ESXi host. You
can also download the VMware vCenter Server Appliance, a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine
optimized for running vCenter Server.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
“Preparing vCenter Server Databases,” on page 30
n
“Prerequisites for Installing vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service, and vCenter Server,” on
page 49
n
“How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects vCenter Server Installation,” on page 51
n
“vCenter Single Sign-On Deployment Modes,” on page 52
n
“vCenter Single Sign-On and High Availability,” on page 54
n
“vCenter Single Sign-On Components,” on page 56
n
“Setting the vCenter Server Administrator User,” on page 56
n
“Authenticating to the vCenter Server Environment,” on page 57
n
“How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects Log In Behavior,” on page 57
n
“Identity Sources for vCenter Server with vCenter Single Sign-On,” on page 58
n
“Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network,” on page 59
n
“Download the vCenter Server Installer,” on page 61
n
“Using a User Account for Running vCenter Server,” on page 61
n
“Installing vCenter Server on IPv6 Machines,” on page 61
n
“JDBC URL Formats for the vCenter Server Database,” on page 62
n
“Running the vCenter Server Installer from a Network Drive,” on page 63
n
“Required Information for Installing or Upgrading vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service,
vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client,” on page 63
n
“Download the vCenter Server Installer,” on page 68
n
“Microsoft SQL Database Set to Unsupported Compatibility Mode Causes vCenter Server Installation
or Upgrade to Fail,” on page 69
VMware, Inc.
29
Preparing vCenter Server Databases
vCenter Server and vSphere Update Manager require databases to store and organize server data.
Each vCenter Server instance must have its own database. For small installations (up to 5 hosts and 50
virtual machines), you can use the bundled Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express database, which you can
choose to have the vCenter Server installer create during the vCenter Server installation. Larger installations
require a supported database, prepared as described in the subtopics of this section.
vCenter Server instances cannot share the same database schema. Multiple vCenter Server databases can
reside on the same database server, or they can be separated across multiple database servers. For Oracle
databases, which have the concept of schema objects, you can run multiple vCenter Server instances in a
single database server if you have a different schema owner for each vCenter Server instance. You can also
use a dedicated Oracle database server for each vCenter Server instance.
You do not need to install a new database server for the vCenter Server installation to work. During
vCenter Server installation, you can point the vCenter Server system to any existing supported database.
vCenter Server supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases. Update Manager supports Oracle and
Microsoft SQL Server databases. For information about supported database server versions, see the VMware
Product Interoperability Matrix at
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php.
CAUTION If you have a VirtualCenter database that you want to preserve, do not perform a fresh installation
of vCenter Server. See the vSphere Upgrade documentation.
VMware recommends using separate databases for vCenter Server and Update Manager. For a small
deployments, a separate database for Update Manager might not be necessary.
vCenter Server Database Configuration Notes
After you choose a supported database type, make sure you understand any special configuration
requirements.
Table 3-1 is not a complete list of databases supported with vCenter Server. For information about specific
database versions and service pack configurations supported with vCenter Server, see the VMware Product
Interoperability Matrixes. This topic is intended only to provide special database configuration notes not
listed in the Product Interoperability Matrixes.
vCenter Server databases require a UTF code set.
Contact your DBA for the appropriate database credentials.
Table 3‑1. Configuration Notes for Databases Supported with vCenter Server
Database Type Configuration Notes
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
R2 Express
Bundled database that you can use for small deployments of up to 5 hosts and 50 virtual
machines.
NOTE This database is not supported for the vCenter Server Appliance.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Ensure that the machine has a valid ODBC DSN entry.
If Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is not already installed and the machine has MSXML Core
Services 6.0 installed, remove MSXML Core Services 6.0 before installing Microsoft SQL
Server 2005. If you cannot remove it using the Add or Remove Programs utility, use the
Windows Installer CleanUp utility. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968749.
NOTE This database is not supported for the vCenter Server Appliance.
vSphere Installation and Setup
30 VMware, Inc.
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