General Cry for Help (vServer w/ESXi 5 Ent Plus)

[winstontj]

Hello,

I absolutely hate feeling this helpless and having to put up a post like this. I have been using Xen (not XenServer just Xen) for a number of years and have been asked to evaluate ESXi 5 as a possible solution because a client may go this route in order to achieve LEED certification (zero client desktops, desktop virtualization, server virtualization, public & private cloud, etc.)

This is in the Financial Services space and we are currently using Xen XCP on individual servers so that a small group/team can share the same server(s). We have done no HA, Failover, clustering, etc. but we need to move in that direction.

I have an Evaluation License as well as a full Enterprise Plus License (signed up for the eval after I got the Ent+). I know it doesn't make sense but we are a sub-affiliate of a very large VMware Enterprise client so we were given a licence key to use for our evaluation (6-months).

All I want to do is build a simple HA cluster across a multi-node machine - and then have it failover to a second machine (both are exactly identical). All I know at this point is that I need vCenter Server to manage clusters & multiple hosts but we don't have a domain, don't use AD (nor do we want to) and we barely use any Windows OS. To further complicate this, two clusters will need to be in a sandbox environment while the other two clusters will not - but none of the machines will ever hit the internet. (meaning you VPN into a machine and then remote desktop into your VM from inside the VPN)

So we don't use AD, we don't have a domain, most of our OS'es are Ubuntu Server (Linux CLI)

Are there video tutorials online/youtube? Is this configuration possible? I have MSDN so I can easily fool around with AD + DNS if I need to but we don't currently use it and want to avoid it at all costs.

Granted I'm not the most AD/DNS/Server 2008 savvy person out there but I haven't even been able to find the most basic setup tutorials to try the "standard" way to install this.

My demo/test environment consists of 4 identical Dell T5500 workstations, each with 72 gigs of RAM, 2x 6-core CPUs (with HT) and a 3-HDD RAID5 array on an LSI HW raid card. each machine has 2x dual port 10G NICs and a single 1-gig quad NIC (which we will use in production). I'd like to build two HA clusters, two machines each and I'd like to have one cluster failover onto the next.

The machines are physiclly located in my office (not racked, etc.).

If anyone could point me in the right direction it would be most greatly appreciated.

Thx!

[Troy_Clavell]

a couple things.  You may want to look the VMware vCenter Server Appliance, which is Linux Based.  This way you don't have to stand up a WIndow OS to install vCenter.  As for HA failover from one cluster to the next, this is not possible, atleast to my knowledge.  HA can only failover guests to hosts that reside in the same HA Cluster.

You con't have to have AD/DNS to make your solution work. (minus the HA failover from cluster to cluster)

[winstontj]

So how do you get around the "you must now enter a fully qualified domain" when you try and install vCenter Server? That's where I got hungup.

I'll forget about the HA failover to another HA cluster then - thx for that. The production machines will be 8-node units with dual PSU, etc. so worst-case we'll just make it a cluster of 16 nodes vs. two 8-node HA clusters.

This still doesn't resolve my AD/DNS/vServer issues though.

The only reason why they are looking to move to VMware is so that the normal IT guys (I'm a consultant, they are more like desktop support) can handle & manage this. If I enter a CLI Linux (or even on Gnome) VM Appliance it'll still not meet the overall project objective. They haven't come out and said it but I think they want it to be a Windows OS vs. so Linux heavy.

Do I just need to suck it up and sort out AD/DNS or is there another way?

I own a few domains so I just used one of mine as a dummy but I'm not sure what the issue is. It DHCP's a hostname - will the Host & vCenter Server conflict with the Domain of the ISP (or router/firewall) vs. what dummy one I used?

[Troy_Clavell]

...Do I just need to suck it up and sort out AD/DNS or is there another way?

If your customer has a need for a WIndows OS to host vCenter, then yes, that would be the prudent thing to do.

...I own a  few domains so I just used one of mine as a dummy but I'm not sure what  the issue is. It DHCP's a hostname - will the Host & vCenter Server  conflict with the Domain of the ISP (or router/firewall) vs. what dummy  one I used?

I wouldn't go this route.  Work on fixing it the right way, not a possible Band-Aid.

If you are going to use WIndows, then you'll need a domain available, to join the vCenter Host to.

[winstontj]

Thx - yeah I can do that (learn AD & use 2k8, etc.) but the problem is more about latency as well as we have never had, don't use and don't want to use AD or a domain name.

Can I use a domain (fake) for the setup process but then NOT use AD for my VMs? (I assume you can just because a Linux OS wouldn't be in AD)

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

Can I use a domain (fake) for the setup process but then NOT use AD for  my VMs? (I assume you can just because a Linux OS wouldn't be in AD)

Yes, that is fine.

[winstontj]

I really appreciate your help!

I think I'm starting to sort this out.

I realized a few things (dumb things) so I wanted to document them incase someone else goes through this.

First of all - replies were very helpful so thanks!

Second of all - I have a setup like this:

ISP / generic internet >>> Work WAN [router/firewall] >>> Work LAN >>> Switch & Work Network

From "Switch & Work Network":

I had plugged in the management interface into the "work LAN" switch AS WELL AS the vSwitch that was controlled by an internal vFirewall (pfSense).

I found that I had conflicts between the domain of my work ISP and the domain of my work router/firewall were conflicting (or missing/not passed through) and that the virtualized firewall/router was not pulling in the domain I assumed it was.

I was able to confirm this by putting in a fake/made up "fully qualified domain" in the hosts and my firewall/router. When they resolved I realized what was going on.

Essentially I created a truly isolated environment which allowed all of the domain names to resolve and push/pull properly. this helped a bunch.

I don't have a clue if vServer will work properly now - it was on a VM which I have destroyed and i'm going to rebuild it and see if I can start over and have things work properly.

Any advice? thoughts?

Thanks!

Oh - if I keep the Vmanagement console NIC on the same vSwitch as the WAN will that in any way bypass anything? In other words do VM's have access to the vManagement NIC in any way?

Thx.