UCS Technology Labs VM-FEX on UCS

VM-FEX vCenter Plugin, VEM Installation,

and Port Profiles
Last updated: April 12, 2013

Task
Integrate vCenter with the UCSM for use with VM-FEX.
Install VEM on ESXi host at 10.0.115.21.
Create a DVS in vCenter with the name VM-FEX-DVS1.
Create a VMKernel port profile named VMK_PoProf with the VLAN 115, allow CDP, and assign it
to CoS 5 in UCSM.
Create a VM guest port profile named VM-110_PoProf with the native VLAN 110 and allow CDP.

Configuration
In the UCSM, in the left navigation pane, click the VM tab, click VMware, and in the right pane,
click Configure VMware Integration.

Click Export.

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Choose a location such as the Desktop and click OK to export the XML key.

Click OK.

In vCenter, click Plug-ins and then click Manage Plug-ins.

Right-click anywhere in the free space and click New Plug-in.

Browse to the location to which you exported the XML extension key. Note that this XML file is
called cisco_nexus_1000v_extension.xml. This is because the same VEM is used for VM-FEX
as is used in the N1Kv product. In VM-FEX, the UCSM FIs act as VSM1 and VSM2 for this
DVS. Click Register Plug-in.

Click Ignore.

Click OK.

Note the successful installation of the key.

Back in the wizard, click Next.

Enter the vCenter name and IP address, the proper datacenter name in vCenter, create a folder
name and a DVS name, and enable the DVS. Click Next.

Note:
Note that a password is not required for vCenter; the key registration eliminated
the need for a passwrod.

Enter the details as shown for the VLAN 110 port profile, and note at the bottom that we must
create something called a Profile Client. The port profile is the same thing that we did previously
in the N1Kv labs. The profile client here is basically a vehicle for SVS that allows the port profile
to pass to the DVS. This is because we might have UCSM integrated into different vCenter
datacenters, and we may even want to use the same port profiles but create them in multiple
different DVSs in different vCenter datacenters.

Click Finish.

Click OK.

Navigate to Home >> Inventory >> Networking.

In the left navigation pane, click VM-FEX-DVS1. In the right pane, click the Configuration tab
and notice the DVS with the new VM-110-PoProf on the VM guest-side of the switch. Also take
note of what has been occurring in Recent Tasks at the bottom. This is all being pushed from
the UCSM FIs.

Back in UCSM, on the VM tab in the left navigation pane, click the new port profile. In the right
pane, click the General tab and note that this is where the wizard created this port profile.

In the right pane, click the Profile Clients tab and note the profile client that was created by the
wizard.

In the left navigation pane, right-click Port Profile and click Create Port Profile.

Enter the details as shown for the VMKernel VLAN 115 port profile and make sure that the
VLAN is not marked as native. Click OK.

Click OK.

Note the successful creation of the port profile in UCSM.

However, in vCenter's VM-FEX DVS, notice that the port group has not appeared yet. This is
because we still need to create a profile client in UCSM to push it over.

Back in UCSM, click the new Port Profile in the left navigation pane, and in the right pane click
the Profile Clients tab and click +.

Define a meaningful name, and fill in the fields to push it to the proper (only, in our case) DVS.
Click OK.

Click OK.

Note the successful creation of the profile client in UCSM.

Also note the successful creation of the port group now in the vCenter DVS.

Now it is time to try to install the VEM to the ESXi host, because all we have so far is
Supervisor modules (USCM FIs) and no real linecards to forward any traffic.
In vCenter, right-click the DVS and click Add Host.

Click the only ESXi instance we have installed here, and select vmnic4 to migrate. Click Next.

Tell the wizard to try to migrate the ESXi host's management vmk0 interface to the new
VMK_PoProf group. Click Next.

Configure the two Win2k8 guests to migrate to the VM-110_PoProf port groups also. Click Next.

Click Finish.

Note the progress of VUM trying to install the VEM VDS module on the ESXi host at the bottom
in Recent Tasks.

Notice that the operation here seems to have failed. There could be a variety of reasons for this,
not the least of which is that we chose a vmnic for uplink purposes that has VLANs for the
guests, but that does not carry the VLAN 115 needed for management. However, we will
discuss an alternative method so that you know how to manually install a VEM module in an
ESXi host, should the need ever arise.

Navigate back to Home >> Inventory >> Hosts and Clusters.

Navigate to the ESXi host, click the Configuration tab, click Security Profile, and click
Properties.

Select ESXi Shell and click Options.

Notice that it is stopped. Select the option to start automatically and then click Start.

Notice that it is now running. Click OK.

Select SSH and click Options.

Select the option to start automatically and then click Start. Click OK.

Notice on the Summary tab that the ESXi Shell and SSH have been enabled. VMware doesn't
typically like this, so it is reported as a "Configuration Issue." Also note the hazard triangle with
an exclamation mark in the left pane on the ESXi host.

Now we must get the VEM file needed to install to the ESXi host directly. Browse to the UCSM
FI virtual IP address and ignore the SSL warning.

Click the option at the bottom to obtain VM-FEX software.

Right-click to download the highlighted .zip file that is for ESXi 5.0 or later.

Select Save Target As.

Choose a location such as the Desktop and save it there.

Back in vCenter, click the ESXi host, click the Configuration tab, click Storage, select
Datastores, right-click vmfex-datastore, and browse to it.

Click the Upload File icon.

Choose the file from where you stored it (the Desktop was recommended) and upload it to the
datastore (so that we can access it later from SSH CLI). Close the datastore window when
finished.

Click the Summary tab, and click Enter Maintenance Mode; make sure that all guests are
powered off first. This will require exiting the vSphere client that is logged in to the vCenter,
relaunching the client, and logging directly in to the ESXi host.

Click Yes.

In the 3750, we SSH over to the ESXi host. We could do this from Server 1 just as well with
PuTTY, but it is best not to use an NX-OS box as an SSH client; this is because it is linux at its
core, so it has a .known_hosts file, and if you've ever tried to SSH to the same IP address
before, but the RSA key has changed (maybe because you reinstalled ESXi on another
occasion as the same IP address), you won't be allowed in.
We will SSH in and run the VMware VIB installer.

DC-3750# ssh -l root 10.0.115.21

Password:
The time and date of this login have been sent to the system logs.
VMware offers supported, powerful system administration tools. Please
see www.vmware.com/go/sysadmintools for details.
The ESXi Shell can be disabled by an administrative user. See the
vSphere Security documentation for more information.
~#
~ # ls -lh /vmfs/volumes/vmfex-datastore/
-rw-------

1 root

root

3.1M Mar 7 19:27 VEM500-2011082513

2140-BG-release.zip
drwxr-xr-x

1 root

root

1.5k Mar 7 00:28 VMFEX-vCenter

drwxr-xr-x

1 root

root

2.2k Mar 7 19:06 Win2k8-www-1

drwxr-xr-x

1 root

root

1.8k Mar 7 17:56 Win2k8-www-2

~#
~ # esxcli software vib install --depot=/vmfs/volumes/vmfex-datastore/VEM
500-20110825132140-BG-release.zip
Installation Result
Message: Operation finished successfully.
Reboot Required: false
VIBs Installed: Cisco_bootbank_cisco-vem-v132-esx_4.2.1.1.4.1.0-3.0.4
VIBs Removed:
VIBs Skipped:
~#

Back in the vSphere Client, take the ESXi host out of Maintenance Mode.

Power on all of the guests. Wait a while for the vCenter guest to come back online and fully
restart all services.

Exit the vSphere client that is logged directly in to the ESXi host, and log back in to the vCenter.
Navigate to Home >> Inventory >> Networking, right-click VM-FEX DVS1, and click Add
Host.

Choose the ESXi host and same vmnic4 adapter as before and click Next.

Choose not to migrate any of the VMkernel interfaces over at this time. Click Next.

Choose not to migrate any of the VMs over at this time, either. Click Next.

Click Finish.

Notice that this time the host adds properly to the DVS.

Navigate back to Home >> Inventory >> Hosts and Clusters.

From the ESXi host, click the Configuration tab, click Networking, and select vSphere
Distributed Switch. Note the newly installed DVS and the single connected uplink adapter and
port group

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