LAB | CrashLoopBackoff

Using the Autolab 2.6 Config

Head on over the Labguides.com and check out autolab. I wanted a quick start, but didn’t want all the fun to be automated out of my hands. So I will give a quick tour of how I got my basic lab up and going. Part 2 I will add a VSAN cluster so I can catch up there too.

The auto-builds of Windows worked great. The domain controller auto setup with DHCP, Active Directory and the fun bits to get PXE working the the ESXi install. This is stuff I didn’t want to waste time on.

I had to re-kick off the vCenter build to get Powershell and PowerCLI up and going. I had to manually install vCenter 6 and the vCenter Appliance doesn’t play nice with Autolab. Ok for me because I actually wanted to run through the install to check the options and see if things like SSO setup got any better.

Letting the hosts PXE boot for vSphere 6 install.

ESXi Install finished

Installing vCenter 6.0

Deploying vCenter was actually pretty smooth. Small lab so I am using the Embedded Deployment.

Adding Hosts

Troubleshooting HA Issues

Just like old times the HA agents didn’t install correctly the first time. The more things change…

Great stuff from Ravello

Very thankful for the vExpert Lab space Ravello provided. If you are considering a home lab but don’t want to buy servers and switches and even storage this can be a good way to play with vSphere. I also spun up Photon and Openstack. Although I want to walk through the Openstack install from start to finish.

One of my hosts did this on boot but a quick restart and it was fine. Next step is to add some VSAN hosts which I will show next time.