We have many vApps we would like to create that will require Promiscuous Mode to be enabled on one or more networks in our vApp.  How in vCloud do you setup a vAppNetwork in a vApp template that will allow Promiscuous Mode access from a vm on the network?

When using the vCloud Director REST API to customize CentOS to add a 2nd NIC and identifying it as primary,  the FQDN (hostname –f) ends up being incorrect (about one out of 10 times). This is due to the way it is updating the /etc/hosts file. In the case where it is wrong, the primary NIC comes after the secondary NIC in the /etc/hosts file. In cases where it works, the new primary NIC is inserted before the secondary NIC. What's odd is that the vCloud API behavior is not consistent when run against similar servers (that are all configured the same way via the API).

Below is a comparison of API Request/Responses for one case that worked and one that did not. Note that NIC-1 comes before NIC-0 in both requests, but the response, shows them in a different order than the request, and subsequently in /etc/hosts. The 2 networks used in both requests are the same. The servers are pretty much identical in every way (originated from same template, same sequence of customization, etc).

Below is an example of the API request when it works, where the order of the NICs in the request matches with the order in the result, and hence results in the correct /etc/hosts file.

API Request:

<NetworkConnectionSection type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.networkConnectionSection+xml" href="https://10.201.113.22/api/vApp/vm-f101dc65-3269-4695-ab65-6aec3812b4ca/networkConnectionSection/" ovf:required="false" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1/dsp8023_1.1.0.xsdhttp://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5http://10.201.113.22/api/v1.5/schema/master.xsd" xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" xmlns:ovf="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <ovf:Info>Specifies the available VM network connections</ovf:Info>
    <PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>1</PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>
   <vcd:NetworkConnection network="vCloud 10.201.125.16x Mgmt" needsCustomization="true" xmlns:vcd="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5">
        <vcd:NetworkConnectionIndex>1</vcd:NetworkConnectionIndex>
        <vcd:IpAddress>10.201.125.162</vcd:IpAddress>
        <vcd:IsConnected>true</vcd:IsConnected>
        <vcd:IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</vcd:IpAddressAllocationMode>
    </vcd:NetworkConnection>
    <NetworkConnection network="vCloud 17.x" needsCustomization="true">
        <NetworkConnectionIndex>0</NetworkConnectionIndex>
        <IpAddress>192.168.17.5</IpAddress>
        <IsConnected>true</IsConnected>
        <MACAddress>00:50:56:01:00:96</MACAddress>
        <IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</IpAddressAllocationMode>
    </NetworkConnection>
    <Link rel="edit" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.networkConnectionSection+xml" href="https://10.201.113.22/api/vApp/vm-f101dc65-3269-4695-ab65-6aec3812b4ca/networkConnectionSection/" />
</NetworkConnectionSection>

Result:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<NetworkConnectionSection xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" xmlns:ovf="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.networkConnectionSection+xml" href="https://10.201.113.22/api/vApp/vm-f101dc65-3269-4695-ab65-6aec3812b4ca/networkConnectionSection/" ovf:required="false" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1/dsp8023_1.1.0.xsdhttp://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5http://10.201.113.22/api/v1.5/schema/master.xsd">

    <ovf:Info>Specifies the available VM network connections</ovf:Info>

    <PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>1</PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>

    <NetworkConnection network="vCloud 10.201.125.16x Mgmt" needsCustomization="true">

        <NetworkConnectionIndex>1</NetworkConnectionIndex>

        <IpAddress>10.201.125.162</IpAddress>

        <IsConnected>true</IsConnected>

        <MACAddress>00:50:56:01:00:98</MACAddress>

        <IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</IpAddressAllocationMode>

    </NetworkConnection>

    <NetworkConnection network="vCloud 17.x" needsCustomization="true">

        <NetworkConnectionIndex>0</NetworkConnectionIndex>

        <IpAddress>192.168.17.5</IpAddress>

        <IsConnected>true</IsConnected>

        <MACAddress>00:50:56:01:00:96</MACAddress>

        <IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</IpAddressAllocationMode>

    </NetworkConnection>

    <Link rel="edit" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.networkConnectionSection+xml" href="https://10.201.113.22/api/vApp/vm-f101dc65-3269-4695-ab65-6aec3812b4ca/networkConnectionSection/"/>

</NetworkConnectionSection>

Below is the correct and expected result (NIC 1 before NIC 0):

[root@CSCO-app-03F ~]# cat /etc/hosts

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

# that require network functionality will fail.

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6

10.201.125.162    CSCO-app-03F.tidalsoft.local CSCO-app-03F # NIC <eth1>

192.168.17.5    CSCO-app-03F # NIC <eth0>

[root@CSCO-app-03F ~]# hostname -f

CSCO-app-03F.tidalsoft.local

Below is the API Request followed by the result for the case where it does not work properly. The request has NIC 1 before NIC 0, but the result has NIC 0 before NIC 1. In both cases, NIC1 is identified as primary.

API Request:

<NetworkConnectionSection type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.networkConnectionSection+xml" href="https://10.201.113.22/api/vApp/vm-a01b79c9-bf2c-4eee-b9d9-7e5e914013d1/networkConnectionSection/" ovf:required="false" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1/dsp8023_1.1.0.xsdhttp://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5http://10.201.113.22/api/v1.5/schema/master.xsd" xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" xmlns:ovf="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

    <ovf:Info>Specifies the available VM network connections</ovf:Info>

    <PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>1</PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>

   <vcd:NetworkConnection network="vCloud 10.201.125.16x Mgmt" needsCustomization="true" xmlns:vcd="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5">

       <vcd:NetworkConnectionIndex>1</vcd:NetworkConnectionIndex>

        <vcd:IpAddress>10.201.125.163</vcd:IpAddress>

        <vcd:IsConnected>true</vcd:IsConnected>

        <vcd:IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</vcd:IpAddressAllocationMode>

    </vcd:NetworkConnection>

    <NetworkConnection network="vCloud 17.x" needsCustomization="true">

        <NetworkConnectionIndex>0</NetworkConnectionIndex>

        <IpAddress>192.168.17.9</IpAddress>

        <IsConnected>true</IsConnected>

        <MACAddress>00:50:56:01:00:97</MACAddress>

        <IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</IpAddressAllocationMode>

    </NetworkConnection>

    <Link rel="edit" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.networkConnectionSection+xml" href="https://10.201.113.22/api/vApp/vm-a01b79c9-bf2c-4eee-b9d9-7e5e914013d1/networkConnectionSection/" />

</NetworkConnectionSection>

Result:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<NetworkConnectionSection xmlns="http://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5" xmlns:ovf="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.networkConnectionSection+xml" href="https://10.201.113.22/api/vApp/vm-a01b79c9-bf2c-4eee-b9d9-7e5e914013d1/networkConnectionSection/" ovf:required="false" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/envelope/1/dsp8023_1.1.0.xsdhttp://www.vmware.com/vcloud/v1.5http://10.201.113.22/api/v1.5/schema/master.xsd">

    <ovf:Info>Specifies the available VM network connections</ovf:Info>

    <PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>1</PrimaryNetworkConnectionIndex>

    <NetworkConnection network="vCloud 17.x" needsCustomization="true">

        <NetworkConnectionIndex>0</NetworkConnectionIndex>

        <IpAddress>192.168.17.9</IpAddress>

        <IsConnected>true</IsConnected>

        <MACAddress>00:50:56:01:00:97</MACAddress>

        <IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</IpAddressAllocationMode>

    </NetworkConnection>

    <NetworkConnection network="vCloud 10.201.125.16x Mgmt" needsCustomization="true">

        <NetworkConnectionIndex>1</NetworkConnectionIndex>

        <IpAddress>10.201.125.163</IpAddress>

        <IsConnected>true</IsConnected>

        <MACAddress>00:50:56:01:00:9b</MACAddress>

        <IpAddressAllocationMode>MANUAL</IpAddressAllocationMode>

    </NetworkConnection>

</NetworkConnectionSection>

Below is incorrect (NIC 0 before NIC 1)

[root@CSCO-db-029 ~]# cat /etc/hosts

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs

# that require network functionality will fail.

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6

192.168.17.9    CSCO-db-029  # NIC <eth0>

10.201.125.163    CSCO-db-029.tidalsoft.local CSCO-db-029 # NIC <eth1>

[root@CSCO-db-029 ~]# hostname -f

CSCO-db-029

I am trying to get nat to work in Vcloud director to replace my labmanager environment. I have several apps that cannot have the IP's changed and need multiple copies of them running at the same time. 

VM's are on network is on a 2.xx range and they need to be accessed from desktops on a network that can be accessed from the 1.xx.  The VM's need to be fenced as I use the 2.xx network.

So far I have created a catalog and a vapp network - the systems come up fine and I can use the console but I cannot get to my gateway on the VM's . Have an external network setup on the 1.xx

vshield edge is deployed on the gateway address of 2.1 and windows VM is on 2.100. External IP shows as 1.242.

Thanks for the help.

Hi,

i'm having problem to activate the vCloud Director (vCD) quarantine function. I'm running the vCD version 5.1.2 and i have mark the checkbox "Enable upload quarantine with a timeout of xxxxx seconds" under system->administration General in vCD (see attached picture Picture-01.png).

When e.g. a ISO file upload is finished, the ISO file is immediately available for all users able to access the catalog where the ISO is uploaded (see attached picture Picture-02.png)

What am i missing here?

Thanks

/Magnus

Hey guys,

I have written a blog post on upgrading vCloud director from 5.1 to 5.5. Do take a look, it might be of use for people who are looking forward to move to 5.5

vSphere 5.5 : Upgrading vCloud Director 5.1 to 5.5 | vPirate

Hi,

we're building images that are compatible for both vCloud and other cloud environments. How to push/get openssh public keys?

I'm still more familar with non vCloud stuff, so I though I ask here first for a second opinion. So far I found metadata info from vmware docs, that list some entries, but nothing for the ssh keys:

VMware vCloud Director Documentation Center

Then there is a way to extend the metadata:

VMware vCloud Director Documentation Center

And then there should be a library/driver written for the cloud-init itself for vCloud datastore that could read the info. Any other recommendations for setting the key into the guest?

BR,

Ilkka Tengvall

Is vCloud Director 5.5 appliance available to download?

Thank you,

Victor

I've been trying to figure out how to increase the screen resolution on my CentOS vm inside vCloud director. The resolution for my centos vm was maxed out at 1176 x 885. In Order to get a higher resolution on my vm, I had to increase the video memory for the vm. I wasn't able to add the video memory from inside vCloud director, I had to go to vCenter to increase the video memory. (right click on the vm, go to edit settings and select video card.) you will also see a video memory calculator to calculate the proper amount of memory for the resolution you desire. I know its a simple thing, but it took me a minute to figure this out. I figured I'd put it on the discussion board in the event that someone else needed or wanted this information.

Thanks,

J

I found some instructions online, which said to stop the vApp and then right-click on it and select "move to..." and then select the oVDC to move it to.  But the only location I see in the drop down is the originating oVDC.

The documentation, unfortunately, doesn't appear to provide any other requirements that need to be met in order for this to work.  I'm curious if there are requirements I can check that might prevent this action from working.

Thank you.

Branding the director is quite easy for 1 company.  Is it possible to support multiple brands?

I see that several service providers are offering white-labeled versions of the director and wondered how they were doing it.

We have recently upgraded from 1.5 to 5.1 but Windows Server 2012 deployment is still failing with message "Guest customization is not supported by the selected OS. Please disable guest customization to proceed."

This behavior is seen only in organizations which existed before upgrade though we have already made change in our existing organizations to make them compatible with 5.1.2.

-Savita

Hi,

I noticed recently that when you deploy a vApp with a Linux VM (CentOS 6.2 for example) and use customization the CD stays connected to customize-guest.iso in the VM's directory (same place as the vmx file) once the VM is done successfully powering on and customization is sucessful (as evidenced by change of IP and hostname for example).

From within the VM the user can mount this CD and access the customization scripts etc. I don't think this is a big problem, as there is no sensitive information in there as far as I can tell, but it is not the expected behaviour. I would expect all the customization related stuff to be cleaned up and disconnected once it is completed (following best practice to keed CD not connected ) .

Now here is where it becomes interesting. Consider the following scenario:

i) deploy a vApp from a catalog template with a Linux VM that gets customized (call this vApp-orig). Once powered on, the VM in vApp-orig will have the customize-guest.iso connected.
ii) capture vApp-orig into a catalog as a 'Make identical copy' template (call this vApp-catalog). Note that the VM in vApp-catalog will still have CD connected to customize-guest.iso in the vApp-orig directory.
iii) deploy a vApp from vApp-catalog template (call this vApp-running). Note that the VM in vApp-running will have its CD connected to the customize-guest.iso in its parent's parent's (grandparent's?!) directory. This could even be on a different datastore!
iv) If you now delete the grandparent you will be left with a directory with just customize-guest.iso in it (and possibly delta files if you are using fast provisioning).

Note that if you open the console to the VM and connect the CDROM to 'None' the CDROM gets disconnected and set to 'Client Device'.

Anyone else noticed this strange behaviour?
Comments?

Cheers,
Milos

When I go to create a new VM in a vApp it does not create the network interfaces for the VM. I can create them manually but it doesn't create them on the VM creation. Any advice on where to look is appreciated.

Thanks,

In vShield Manager -> Network Virtualization -> Preparation, we accidentally created a "Netowrk Connectivity for VXLAN Traffic" with a wrong Distributed Switch, it also trigger the creation of a VXLAN "Network Pool" in our vCloud Director.

Then we remove the cluster for the VXLAN Network in vShield Manager, and create a new Network Connection for VXLAN Traffic for the cluster. However, in our vCloud Director, the old VXLAN network pool is still there, and no new VXLAN network pool created.

So how could we remove the old VXLAN network pool in "Network Pools" in vCloud Director? then create a new one?

Thank you,

Victor

Hi,

At the moment you can hot-add cpu and hot-add memory to a virtual machine in vCloud director. Two great features. But from a management perspective I would much rather have the option to hot-add disks and hot-extend disks in virtual machines. Extending disks and adding disks on the fly is a very common practise in vSphere.

Does anyone have any input on this? Can it be done through the API? Or is it on the road map for a future version of vCloud Director?

Hi there

I have a up and running cloud with 5.5. If I upload media (iso) to a public catalog and copy that to a private catalog vcloud says to me that he could not mount the media because of a incorrect media type (picture). If I upload the same iso into the private catalog directly I can mount and boot from the iso.

Are there any issues like that already known or and solution/workaround ?

regards

supermega

I've been getting this issue whilst trying to deploy VM's into an org using my public catalog.

However, since I've now checked the "Enable thin provisioning" option for the storage on the org VCD this issue has gone away.

I have a single datastore cluster for this environment which has 20TB free space.

The template I use for my catalog has thin provisioned disks.

I'm also unable to import anything from vSphere due to the same issue. For example, I cloned my existing template and attempted to import this into a new catalog within my org and it failed stating "No suitable resource was found"

The cluster providing the PVDC has 6 hosts and a total of 96 processors and 1.2TB RAM.

At the moment I'm running about 82 small VM's which aren't using anything like the available resources.

vCloud Director 5.1.1.868405 and ESXi 5.0

What's going on?

Does anyone know if there is an optional method of accounting for data store usage in vCD? Currently, the system includes all of the VMDK (virtual drives) and the VM's overhead files of swap, VMX, snapshots, etc. As a service provider customers pay for storage that they can actually use, such as a Windows C:\ drive that is 60GB. Currently we must over allocated the storage selected by a customer that covers all of their storage requirements plus about 2 GB per VM and amount of total vRAM. I can't just give my provisioning team a general percent basis since vRAM comes into the equation so heavy. It would be much preferred if the storage utilization only included root VDMK files (the allocated virtual drives), customers need not know anything about snapshots and all of the other storage overhead.

Today it just is not a clean process with customer communication and packaging, they think we are giving them free storage so they use it and run out again and again. I also do not want to document and disclose that all deployed VMs have storage overhead that the customer must take into account. That looks and sounds like fine print and gothchas that customers hate. It should be simple, customer needs 1000GB of allocated storage, then they should be able to add as many VM virtual disks that they desire up to the full 1000GB allocation.

Feature request?

Accounting option?

Is it possible to restrict the ability to download a vApp as an OVF? In our environment, we can't allow the machines to leave our contained VCD environment, but it doesn't seem that it's possible to prevent users from being able to download catalog items they have Read access to.

Hi, I have a vCloud setup but I want to scrap it and start again.  I have removed all the vApps, Media and disks but cannot delete anything else.

When I try to delete the Organization VDC is says: "you must remove all edge gateways, networks, vApps, media and disks from this VDC before you can delete it". 

However If I try to remove the edge gateway I get:  Edge gateway has org VDC Networks attached to it.  Please delete the network(s) before attempting to delete the edge gateway".

Any thoughts??