Milestone 3 Nested Virtualization and Templates - nicolas-tullio/Tech-Journal GitHub Wiki

DNS Entries on ad350

As I mentioned in a previous journal, I created a new Win server desktop box to make use of the server manager GUI. This made creating the following DNS records easy. image

ESXi Auto-Start

In the ESXI console or GUI you can select all the VMs, turn AutoStart on for all of them then, navigate to Manage --> System --> Autostart and from there put them in the autostart order of PFsense, MGMT01, AD-350 and then Vcenter. This ensures there is minimal downtime for these VMs when the supermicro reboots.

3 ESXi Virtual Appliances

Navigate to http://192.168.7.240/ovas/Nested_ESXi7_Template.ova and download the .OVA file. Next upload the file to the datastore. From here follow the Deploy OVF Template wizard. Make sure to thin provision the disk and tie it to 350-Internal. Finally, configure your OVA Template with unique machine info. Repeat these steps for the last 2 nested templates nested2 and nested3.

Adding nested1,2,3 to your sys350 datacenter

In order to make nested virtual networking work, tweak the vSwitch settings for 350-Internal to override and accept Promiscuous mode and Forged transmits. Once this is done you need to add the 3 nested VMs as Hosts on the datacenter.

Templates (convert VM to Template- then Clone)

I configured DHCP via pfsense which was very simple since it is done via the web GUI. Once this is done, create a Rocky VM and an Ubuntu VM. Perform a basic setup and take a snapshot called Base. Power off the VMs and then turn them into Templates.

Conversion of VM to a template

Create the following specifications: image

Create New VM from Template

When deploying, select “Customize the Operating System” and it will allow you to pick your specifications.