view composer with 3 view manager and 3 AD

[vmb01]

Hello to everybody,

my custormer has the following architecture:

3 AD domains not trusted, 1 VCenter in WORKGROUP, some ESX managed by this Vcenter

He wish to start with a VIEW/LINKED CLONE project. Do you think that the following configuration will work:

3 different VIEW MANAGER, one for every domain

The 3 view manager point to the same Vcenter with VIEW COMPOSER installed.

The 3 VIEW manager create the automated desktop polls with composer so the Vcenter/composer has to create different linked VMs receiving the input from 3 different VIEW manager

Any help will be appreciated

[mpryor]

It should be fine to share Virtual Center/View Composer between the multiple environments as you describe, but you will need to ensure that DNS and firewall rules allow the machine running View Composer to both resolve and communicate with any domains you deploy VMs into.

[Bart_Verbruggen]

Does anyone how do we Enable the View Composer? And add the domain administrator account?

Thanks,

Bart

[GuillaumeARRQ]

I have a problem with that too. VMware View refuse everything I throw at it when I try to add the admin account. The error message is "bad username and/or/ password".

And a few points : I know what is a FQDN. Nope, I didn't made a typo (well maybe a few times out of the hundreds I tried).

So my question is, which process actually calls the AD to verify the credentials ??? View Composer ? View Connection Server ?

[mmarinov]

You must install the View Composer on the VC server machine.

Furthermore you must check that from the VMware View's machine you are able to resolve the name of the View Composer machine.

Next from the View Machine when you login go to Configuration tab. Click edit on the current VC added to the VMware View and then you can Enable the View Composer from the button there.

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Martin Marinov

VMware Software Engineer

[TomHowarth]

Sorry but is it just me that has noticed the vCenter in a "Workgroup". How do you set up trusts???

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author for the upcoming book "VMware Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment”.

[Bart_Verbruggen]

I can connect the Viw composer to the VC into the other domain, but when I want to add the domain administrator from the new domain it does not find the AD.

Example:

VC and composer are in domain A.

View server is in domain B.

There is NO trust between domain A and B (and never will be).

How do I get it done that I can add a domain admin account from domain B into the composer that is connected to domain A?

Bart

[TomHowarth]

Then it cannot be done, read the documentation it clearly states "TRUSTED DOMAINS"

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author for the upcoming book "VMware Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment”.

[Uniq]

What document says "TRUSTED DOMAINS"? I can't find this in the administrators guide.

I also have the problem adding the Domain administrator account in the View Composer Settings in View Administrator.

After entering the credentials it says "Bad domain name"

My VC is in a workgroup and the View Manager is in a domain.

[Linjo]

Can you connect to a DC in each domain from the VC?

In that case it should work...

To make sure its not a DNS issue, add the DC:s in the local hosts file in the VC and the View Managers.

// Linjo

[Uniq]

Thanks for your reply, I had this working last friday.

The solution was adding a DC ip address and the domain name in the local hosts file on the VC.

Adding DC's didn't help, but adding a DC ip address and the domain name did.

[Bart_Verbruggen]

Can you tell us what you exactly added in the hosts files?

Thx

Bart

[Uniq]

ofcourse, I've added the following in the hosts file:

aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa bbbbbb.local

aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa = the ip address of a Domain Controller of the domain of which the Virtual Desktops will be a member of

bbbbbb.local = the domain name of which the Virtual Desktops will be a member of (remember: not the DC name, but the Domain name)

Please let me know if it helped

[mterry]

Hi,

Adding the ip address of the domain and the domain name to the host files on the VC server as well as the View Manager server did not fix my problem. I am still getting the "Bad Domain Name" error.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

[lbourque]

A few thoughts:

1. composer needs it's own database (you can use composer)

2. the vcenter it's part of doesn't need to be part of th domain. It's not dependent on that

3. The account used to connect to composer must be able to add a computer account to the domain

4. that accout is added to view as follows:

domain.com

domain.com\user

password

This is the required info.

5. Host file should have IP and domain controller info, not domain info. Ensure you can ping the DC and vCenter by IP and FQDN

HTH

[Uniq]

Well can't say I agree on point 5, it definitely didn't work when I entered the domain controller host name, but did when I entered the domain name.

Maybe Bart can confirm on this?

[aj205]

I have ran into this issues a few times. One thing to keep in mind is if you are a child domain try the parent domain when it asks for the domain info.

EX:

Domain: parent.domain.com

User: child\administrator

As you can see I entered the FQDN for the domain but only the netbios for the child domain when entering the user info.

[Rumple]

You must install the View Composer on the VC server machine. /quote]

Interestingly enough I am going through the View manager deployment guide and it doesn't state anywhere Compoer is to be installed on the VC Server, nor does it check during the install.

EDIT

Crap I hate when I am wrong

VMware View Composer

VMware View Composer is a software service installed on VMware VirtualCenter. It works in

conjunction with VMware View Manager to rapidly deploy multiple linked clone based desktops

from a single centralized parent image.