Ever since the release of vRA 7.1 I have been trying to make time to test the new silent install. My initial results were not very positive and I ended up spending hours with VMware GSS trying to figure out what is going with their scripts. In the end GSS pretty much gave up and asked me to wait for the release of 7.2.
Here is a my community post on the issue as well:
https://communities.vmware.com/message/2621224
So here we are today and I finally had some time to complete my tests with vRA 7.2. Spoiler alert! its works pretty well!
So since vRA 7.1 it provides an option for scripted, silent installations which uses executable that references a text-based answer file.
Where a silent unattended/scripted install makes sense is for repeatedly deploying multiple identical.
To start off with, the silent install does not install the appliance OVA (would be nice future enhancement) and this has been to deployed upfront, as well as the deployment and configuration of the Iaas Windows server.
The unattended silent install is then performed from the console of the vRealize Automation appliance utilizing the vra-command which was also introduced in 7.1.
Prerequisites for silent install:
- Deploy the vRA appliance, but do not log in and start the installation wizard!
- Deploy IaaS Windows servers . vRA prerequisites are NOT required since this is done through the silent install (this was broken in 7.1)
- Verify network connectivity and DNS naming resolution.
- Install vRA management agent on IAAS windows server.
My testing environment will consist of a simple install, but I will try to provide another blog for an enterprise silent install in near future.
1 x vRA 7.2 appliances [vratest.sov.com]
1 x IaaS server (windows) [vraiaas.sov.com]
To make this silent install even more useful I am using some codes snippets from an awesome script that William Lam created, which allows me to automatically deploy the vRA appliance as well as the IaaS management agent.
There are 3 files required to run this.
- vRA_simple_install.ps1
- Script which runs all the tasks to complete. Only need to run this.
- ha.properties
- This is a answer file which need to filled out with your vRA deployment information.
- VRA7-Iaas-Windows-MngtAgent-Install.ps1
- Script installs the Management Agent on IaaS server.
So my additional requirements:
- vRA IaaS server is running
- Complete the ha.properties answer file with your vRA settings.
- Update the vRA_simple_install script
- make sure to update the folder location where the files reside
- Update the VRA7-Iaas-Windows-MngtAgent-Install script
Now just run the vRA_simple_install script.ps1. Steps performed in the Script:
- Deploy vRA appliances
- Install vRA Management Agents on IaaS server
- Copy ha.properties to the vRA appliance server
- Run vRA silent installer
- Prerequisites installed and configured on the Windows IaaS servers. This is enabled in the answer file.
- This take a long time, go make a cup of tea!
- Review the logs on vRA appliance
- /var/log/vcac/vra-ha-config.log
I am not a programmer so I am sure the scripts can probably be configured in a different/better way but here they are. If you have any feedback to make this better please let me know.
Links:
JohannStander 