Setup

Add Server 19 and VCSA ISOs to DataStore 2 and make base for Windows Server 2019

• On your workstation, browse to the Cyber-Share drive then navigate to X:\ISOs\F24\SYS-350 and find the vCenter and Windows Server ISOs to download (VMware-VCSA and SERVER_EVAL)

• Just like before, upload those to your vSphere's datastore with the datastore browser using the upload option

• Once the Windows Server ISO upload is done, create a new VM called DC1-yourname on VM Network for now. Give it 2 CPUs and 6-8 gb of ram (I went with 8 to be safe), leave the storage the default but make sure it is thin provisioned

DC1-350

• Power on DC1 and once you get to the screen asking you for an administrator password, press the keys ctrl + shift + F3 to enter audit mode. Once the VM has restarted move the sysprep window to the side, open up powershell and run sconfig to get to this menu

• First, head to updates using the 6th option. Now you can do recommended or all updates, I press A for all to be safe and wait for those to install and for DC1 to restart

• Set updates to manual, set the time zone to Eastern Standard Time, set hostname to DC1-yourname. Next step is to install VMWare tools (It bugged out on me everytime). So we'll install SSH now using the Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0 command. Bring the sysprep tab up and run it so your VM shuts off when it is done. After fully powering it off set its network to 350-internal and change CDROM to Host Device. Take snapshot named Base

• Power the VM back on and set the Administrator password. Set the static settings for IPv4 (Your initial DNS will be 10.0.17.2 but moves on to 10.0.17.4 once you set your domain up)

• Head over to Server Manager and select Manage then Add Roles and Features

• Select Role-based or feature-based installation and select DC1 to install ADDS/DNS with management tools (A prompt for installing the management tools will come up)

• After the install finishes, you will get a notification in Server Manager about post installation configuration to promote your DC to a domain controller. Select it and it will bring up the menu for creating your domain.

Not my pictures for these few parts as I'm documenting this after the fact

• Set the DSRM password and continue with the defaults

• Create your domain admin account named yourname-adm and add it to the groups; Domain Admins and Enterprise Admins.

• Then move on to making A and PTR records for the following

vCenter Installation

• Head over to MGMT1 and set your DNS server to 10.0.17.4 and search yourname.local

• Make sure your ESXi host is using the time server pool.ntp.org, then mount the VCSA and connect CDROM

• Open the console for your VM, and run the vCenter installer with cd /media/yourname/VMware\ VCSA/vcsa-ui-installer/lin64/ and ./installer

• This will bring up Stage 1 of the vCenter install

• Continue with the Stage 1 install as follows entering the ESXi IP and your ESXi root password

• Set the VM name for your vcenter server and set its root password

• Set Deployment size to Small and hit next

• Select your datastore and enable thin disk mode!

• Configure your network settings

• Hit next and complete to complete Stage 1 of the vCenter deployment

• For Stage 2, it will ask you to synchronize time with a server. (Again the following images aren't mine as this is after the fact) We are using pool.ntp.org

• Set your vsphere.local sso name and administrator password as we are not domain joining quite yet

• Do not join CEIP and hit next. Then select finish, this will complete Stage 2 and finish the vcenter server install (it will take forever to complete)

• Now we are able to browse to our vCenter server using the url its new VM tells you, but we made A records so browse to vcenter.yourname.local and sign in with your [email protected] account If you haven't already add a :5480 to your url to browse to the management console for vcenter You need to make sure that your domain controller, ESXi host, and vCenter server are all using the same time server.

• Go over to the regular vcenter console, right-click vcenter.yourname.local to bring up the options and select New Datacenter and name it SYS350

• Right click your new datacenter and select Add Host then enter the IP or hostname of your ESXi. It will prompt your for where to store your VMs and just put them under your hosts folder

• Finally, we are going to domain join our vcenter server. Head to Administration then Single Sign On to Configuration. Select the drop-down menu as shown to bring up Active Directory Domain

• Select JOIN AD then enter your domain admin creds

• Once it is successfully domain joined, you will need to restart your vCenter server. I opened up the VM and restarted it from there by signing in with my root password after hitting F12

• After signing in hit F11 to restart. It takes awhile for the web appliance to come back up.

• Once it is completely restarted, we can sign into vcenter with our admin account (Don't forget to add your domain admin account to the vsphere administrator group)

• Milestone 2 should be complete after this

Deliverables

Deliverable 1. SSH session from mgmt1 to yourname-adm@[email protected]. With your session show the logged in user, their primary ad groups, and the A records for your primary zone similar to the screenshot below

Deliverable 2. Provide Screenshots that show:

Your current vCenter version (your’s should show an 8.X version)

Valid vCenter license

Valid vsphere license

Deliverable 3. Provide a screenshot showing your named domain administrator login in the upper right of the vCenter UI.