PowerVCF 2.1.1 Now Available with Support for VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1

PowerVCF 2.1.1 is now available on the PowerShell Gallery here or from GitHub here. This release includes support for VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 with some new and updated cmdlets. Highlights below

Category	cmdlet Name	Description	Comment
Users and Groups	Get-VCFCredential	Retrieves a list of credentials.	UPDATE: Added support for the vRealize Suite credentials
Bundles	Start-VCFBundleUpload	Starts upload of bundle to SDDC Manager	UPDATE: Allows the import of a bundle based on offline download.
Federation	New-VCFFederationInvite	Invite new member to VCF Federation	UPDATE: Added support to specify if the new system is a MEMBER or CONTROLLER.
SDDC	Start-CloudBuilderSDDCValidation	Starts validation on VMware Cloud Builder	UPDATE: Added support for individual validation tasks.
Workspace ONE Access	Get-VCFWSA	Get details of the existing Workspace ONE Access	NEW
vRealize Automation	Get-VCFvRA	Get details of the the existing vRealize Automation	NEW
vRealize Operations	Get-VCFvROPs	Get details of the existing vRealize Operations Manager	NEW
vRealize Operations	Set-VCFvROPs	Connect or disconnect Workload Domains to vRealize Operations Manager	NEW
vRealize Log Insight	Get-VCFvRLI	Get details of the existing vRealize Log Insight	NEW
vRealize Log Insight	Set-VCFvRLI	Connect or disconnect Workload Domains to vRealize Log Insight	NEW
vRealize Suite Lifecycle	Get-VCFvRSLCM	Get details of the existing vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager	UPDATE: Fixed an issue with the API URI and addressed response output

VMware Cloud Foundation Bringup With Signed Certs on ESXi Hosts

Traditionally VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) has followed the hybrid approach when it comes to SSL certificate management. Hybrid mode essentially means using CA signed certs for the vCenter Server machineSSL cert, and VMCA signed certs for the solution user certs. In this mode, ESXi host certs are VMCA managed also. You then have the option to integrate with an external Microsoft CA or continue to use VMCA for all certs. If you decide to integrate with a Microsoft CA, ESXi host certs remain VMCA managed. This is not always ideal as some customers require all components on the network to be signed by a known & trusted CA. Up until the recent 4.1 VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) release it was not possible to use custom CA signed certs on your ESXi hosts, as hybrid mode would overwrite your CA signed ESXi certs with VMCA signed certs. There is a great blog post here on how to manually enable CA signed certs here but with VCF 4.1 it is now supported to do this via the API during bringup. The procedure is as follows:

Install the ESXi hosts that will be used for bringup with the ESXi version on the Bill Of Materials for 4.1
Install your custom CA signed certs on each host that will be used for the management domain
1. Log in to the ESXi Shell, either directly from the DCUI or from an SSH client, as a user with administrator privileges.
2. In the directory /etc/vmware/ssl, rename the existing certificates using the following commands.
  mv rui.crt orig.rui.crt mv rui.key orig.rui.key
3. Copy the certificates that you want to use to /etc/vmware/ssl.
4. Rename the new certificate and key to rui.crt and rui.key.
5. Restart the host management agents by running the following commands

 /etc/init.d/hostd restart /etc/init.d/vpxa restart

Repeat the above steps for all management domain hosts

To ensure that SDDC Manager is aware that you are using custom certs you need to add a flag in the bringup json along with the PEM encoded signing chain certificate, so that it is added to the SDDC Manager keystore. This will ensure the certificates are trusted. The API guide for 4.1 provides an example json spec here. Pay particular attention to this section

securitySpec" : {
"esxiCertsMode" : "One among:Custom, VMCA",
"rootCaCerts" : [ {
"alias" : "string",
"certChain" : [ "string" ]
} ]
}

So to enable support for signed certs you would set this section as follows (Substituting your signing CA chain)

 securitySpec" : { 
"esxiCertsMode" : "Custom", 
"rootCaCerts" : [ { 
"alias" : "Rainpole-CA", 
"certChain" : [ "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIDczCCAlugAwIBAgIQI9xwbTkI9J5GhMffcP5CHDANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADBM
MRIwEAYKCZImiZPyLGQBGRYCaW8xGDAWBgoJkiaJk/IsZAEZFghyYWlucG9sZTEc
MBoGA1UEAxMTcmFpbnBvbGUtZGMwMXJwbC1DQTAeFw0yMDAzMzAxNDQ2MTNaFw0y
NTAzMzAxNDU2MTNaMEwxEjAQBgoJkiaJk/IsZAEZFgJpbzEYMBYGCgmSJomT8ixk
ARkWCHJhaW5wb2xlMRwwGgYDVQQDExNyYWlucG9sZS1kYzAxcnBsLUNBMIIBIjAN
BgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAzpwkz7aPlQcfevcCelHc9DPswHkd
kjY96Vh3GvYlesaVEcy/q/BOvvh3KgLMLy8r7cy2cNPO3FANKOfqVdVx3ghfEUyL
g61W9BskAlwryzJRmjhOJJVqvB8CWjy+eCp7MejHGdEud6WdEvK8CaBcPngEg0KM
eLRNLGe8OCw8yY4GTrjU+H7PYQZtyD0kxxy5f48ueaDXat4ENRGcAuHEfCoMGfaR
bDue1OO4diHd900bCym5ggBNX0jhRudNULXPTayZl2ksImV0+QkaVeptQImXfCgb
kgnHQJ5CxK26up7fB5eAsmGLAsJLBnHuM7P9xvV09EvWjFCgLX/oBBDYTQIDAQAB
o1EwTzALBgNVHQ8EBAMCAYYwDwYDVR0TAQH/BAUwAwEB/zAdBgNVHQ4EFgQU7oOq
QBK8yg8mHnAfb+u6/GO0ZUcwEAYJKwYBBAGCNxUBBAMCAQAwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL
BQADggEBALYxZGj4vWjFDN1atOUsBx2jrmxbExgMAyRpNlSc2aj+7vzxHxUW5VbX
x9nc/BfkTiCK6c7Y9VYb+mgjb8z0kNv58sT4ar1yIl1n63VOCoyyLcaFB8HyEJpD
wUhz4RNPoSijZMpm+M5EuSLfWlhEJo7N8sLqHgvvk1dFpbK8fIHbPS5KJwJibbPe
w9UuNRdcxN9hFWKBC0SvfgX+1CJxVdvgfi65rSHPuWinJzrXXdH999DfpDESRzwH
0pqE3GtMCt1Nqalp2QJFdahbT+kxj7QWHTjUylSENDHjdln7a8WH8RGxvEy/97YZ
+crXmxvQ/bAgHk9vcRERbRjfyIs7v88=
-----END CERTIFICATE-----" ] } ] }

You can then follow the steps outlined in the API guide to deploy the management domain using the Cloud Builder API. Note that once custom mode is enabled, all future workload domains that you create must also use signed certs.

Where Are My VMware Cloud Foundation Logs?

From time to time we all need to look at logs, whether its a failed operation or to trace who did what when. In VMware Cloud Foundation there are many different logs, each one serving a different purpose. Its not always clear which log you should look at for each operation so here is a useful reference table.

Log Type	VM Location	log Location
BringUp	Cloud Builder	JSON Generator – /opt/vmware/sddc-support/cloud_admin_tools/logs/JsonGenerator.log Platform Audit – /opt/vmware/sddc-support/cloud_admin_tools/logs/PlatformAudit.log
BringUp	Cloud Builder	Bringup – /var/log/vmware/vcf/bringup/vcf-bringup-debug.log
Licensing	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/operationsmanager.log
Network Pool	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/commonsvcs/vcf-commonsvcs.log
Host Commission/Decommission	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/operationsmanager.log
VI (WLD domain)	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log
vRLI	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log
vRLI	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/commonsvcs/vcf-commonsvcs.log
vROPS	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log
vROPS	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/commonsvcs/vcf-commonsvcs.log
vRA	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log
vRA	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/commonsvcs/vcf-commonsvcs.log
vRSLCM	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log
		/var/log/vmware/vcf/commonsvcs/vcf-commonsvcs.log
		Upgrade: /var/log/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm.log

	vRSLCM	/var/log/vrslcm/vmware_vrlcm.log
LCM	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm.log
API Login	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/commonsvcs/vcf-commonsvcs.log
SoS	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/sddc-support/vcf-sos-svcs.log
Certificate Operations	SDDC Manager	/var/log/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/operationsmanager.log

PowerVCF 2.0 Authentication Changes

One of the many major enhancements in VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 is a switch from basic authentication to token based authentication for the VCF API.

Basic authentication is a header field in the form of Authorization: Basic <credentials>, where credentials is the base64 encoding of a username and password. The credentials are not encrypted, therefore Basic Authentication is not the industry standard for API authentication.

VCF 4.0 has moved to using token based authentication (JWT Tokens to be exact) for securing the API. The token implementation is as follows:

An authorized user executes a POST API call to /v1/tokens
The response contains an access token and a refresh token
1. The access token is valid for 1 hour
  1. The access token is passed in every API call header in the form of Authorization: Bearer <access token>
2. The refresh token is valid for 24 hours
  1. The refresh token is used to request a new access token once it has expired

PowerVCF 2.0 abstracts all of this in the following way:

An authorized user connects to SDDC Manager to request the tokens by running:


Connect-VCFManager -fqdn sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io -username svc-vcf-api@rainpole.io -password VMw@re1!

The access & refresh tokens are stored in memory and used when running subsequent API calls. As each API call is executed PowerVCF checks the expiry of the access token. If the access token is about to expire, it uses the refresh token to request a new access token and proceeds with the API call. So the user does not need to worry about token management.

We have also introduced roles that can be assigned to users. Initially we have ADMIN & OPERATOR, with more roles planned for a future release.

ADMIN = Full Administrator Access to all APIs

OPERATOR = All Access except Password Management, User Management, Backup Management

To request an API token you must have a user account that is assigned either the ADMIN or OPERATOR role in SDDC Manager. The default administrator@vsphere.local user is assigned the ADMIN role during bringup but it is advisable to add additional users for performing day to day tasks.

Once you have a user added you can then authenticate with SDDC Manager to retrieve your access & refresh tokens.

Tip: You can connect using the administrator@vsphere.local user to add new users using PowerVCF. You can use the New-VCFUser PowerVCF cmdlet to create the user and assign a role like so:


Connect-VCFManager -fqdn sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io -username administrator@vsphere.LOCAL -password VMw@re1!

New-VCFUser -user vcf-admin@rainpole.io -role ADMIN

Once your user is configured PowerVCF will do the rest when it comes to managing the API access tokens.

Announcing PowerVCF 2.0

I’m happy to announce the availability of PowerVCF 2.0. This version of PowerVCF is compatible with VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 and above. Due to some API security enhancements in VCF 4.0 around the use of API tokens for authentication the module has been refactored to leverage access & refresh tokens (more on that here). For that reason if you would like to use PowerVCF for VCF 3.9.x you should continue to use PowerVCF 1.2 .

PowerVCF 2.0 is published to the PowerShell Gallery here https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/PowerVCF/2.0.0

Whats new in PowerVCF 2.0

Along with a number of new or modified cmdlets the following enhancements have been made:

Grouped cmdlets based on order of API documentation
Code hygiene

The following table provides a detailed breakdown of all the changes for this release. Thanks to my colleague @GaryJBlake for doing most of the work on this release and for pulling this list together!

Category	cmdlet Name	Description	Comment
Backup and Restore	Start-VCFRestore	Starts the restore process of SDDC Manager	NEW
Backup and Restore	Get-VCFRestoreTasks	Gets the status of the restore process	NEW
Connectivity	Connect-VCFManager	Create authentication header for SDDC Manager appliance	UPDATED – Support the new token / bearer authentication model and basicAuth switch for restore process
Connectivity	Connect-CloudBuilder	Create authentication header for Cloud Builder appliance	NEW
Certificates	Get-VCFCertificateAuthority	Get Certificate Authority information	UPDATED – Added support for getting the details by id
Certificates	Remove-VCFCertificateAuthority	Deletes Certificate Authority configuration	NEW
Certificates	Get-VCFCertificate	View certificate of all the resources in a domain	UPDATED – Added support for get certificate details by resource
Credentials	Get-VCFCredential	Get the credentials	UPDATED- Added support for getting the details by id
Credentials	Stop-VCFCredentialTask	Cancels a failed update or rotate passwords task	RENAMED – From Cancel-VCFCredentialTask
Credentials	Restart-VCFCredentialTask	Retry a failed rotate/update passwords task	RENAMED – From Retry-VCFCredentialTask
Hosts	Commission-VCFHost	Commissions a list of hosts	UPDATED – Added support for validating the input spec for host operations (-validate switch)
NSX-T Edge Clusters	Get-VCFEdgeCluster	Get an Edge Cluster	NEW
NSX-T Edge Clusters	New-VCFEdgeCluster	creates an NSX-T edge cluster	NEW
Personalities	Get-VCFPersonality	Get the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Personalities	NEW
SDDC (Cloud Builder)	Get-CloudBuilderSDDC	Retrieve all SDDCs	NEW
SDDC (Cloud Builder)	Start-CloudBuilderSDDC	Create SDDC	NEW
SDDC (Cloud Builder)	Restart-CloudBuilderSDDC	Retry failed SDDC creation	NEW
SDDC (Cloud Builder)	Get-CloudBuilderSDDCValidation	Get all SDDC specification validations	NEW
SDDC (Cloud Builder)	Start-CloudBuilderSDDCValidation	Validate SDDC specification before creation	NEW
SDDC (Cloud Builder)	Stop-CloudBuilderSDDCValidation	Cancel SDDC specification validation	NEW
SDDC (Cloud Builder)	Restart-CloudBuilderSDDCValidation	Retry SDDC validation	NEW
System Prechecks	Start-VCFSystemPrecheck	Perform System Precheck	RENAMED – From Start-PreCheckVCFSystem
System Prechecks	Get-VCFSystemPrecheckTask	Get System Precheck Task	RENAMED – From Get-PreCheckVCFSystemTask
Tasks	Restart-VCFTask	Retry a previously failed task	RENAMED – From Retry-VCFTask
Users	Get-VCFRole	Get all roles	NEW
Users	Get-VCFUser	Get all Users	NEW
Users	New-VCFUser	Adds a new user	NEW
Users	New-VCFServiceUser	Adds a new service user	NEW
Users	Delete-User	Deletes a user	NEW
vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager	Reset-VCFvRSLCM	Redeploy vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager	NEW
vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager	New-VCFvRSLCM	Validate the input specification for vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager deployment	UPDATED – Added support for validating the json spec (-validate switch).

Create a multi pNIC VMware Cloud Foundation NSX-V Workload Domain with PowerVCF

Hopefully by now you’ve seen my earlier posts about the new PowerShell module for the VMware Cloud Foundation API. If not i’d suggest reviewing these before reading on

Introducing PowerVCF – A PowerShell Module for the VMware Cloud Foundation API

Create a new VMware Cloud Foundation Workload Domain with PowerVCF

With the release of VMware Cloud Foundation 3.9.1 it is now supported, via the API only, to use more than 2 physical NICs (pNICs) per host. In fact the API now supports up to three vSphere Distributed switches and six physical NICs, providing more flexibility to support high performance use cases and physical traffic separation.

There is a tech note that goes into more detail on the use cases for more than 2 pNICs and it also shows how this works using PostMan but we can also achieve this using PowerVCF.

The workflow using PowerVCF is the same as my earlier example for creating a workload domain. The only difference is the content in the JSON file.

Note: There is a validation API to validate the JSON you are passing before making the submission. PowerVCF dynamically formats the validation JSON as the formatting is slightly different to what you submit to create the workload domain.

To get you started there is a sample JSON file with the required formatting. Here is a snapshot of what it looks like

{
  "domainName": "PowerVCF",  
  "vcenterSpec": {  
    "name": "sfo01w01vc01",  
    "networkDetailsSpec": {  
       "ipAddress": "172.16.225.64",  
       "dnsName": "sfo01w01vc01.sfo01.rainpole.local",  
       "gateway": "172.16.225.1",  
       "subnetMask": "255.255.255.0"
     },  
     "rootPassword": "VMw@re1!",  
     "datacenterName": "PowerVCF-DC"  
   },  
   "computeSpec": {  
      "clusterSpecs": [ {  
          "name": "Cluster1",  
          "hostSpecs": [ {  
              "id": "d0693b58-4012-4387-92ed-721cfa709e44",
              "license":"AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA",
              "hostNetworkSpec": {  
                 "vmNics": [ {  
                     "id": "vmnic0",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1"  
                  }, {  
                     "id": "vmnic1",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1"  
                  }, { 
                     "id": "vmnic2",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2" 
                  }, {  
                     "id": "vmnic3",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2"  
                  } ]  
               }  
            }, {  
              "id": "7006bec4-fccb-49a0-bff6-fd56c807d26a",
              "license":"AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA",
              "hostNetworkSpec": {  
                 "vmNics": [ {  
                     "id": "vmnic0",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1"  
                  }, {  
                     "id": "vmnic1",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1"  
                  }, { 
                     "id": "vmnic2",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2" 
                  }, {  
                     "id": "vmnic3",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2"  
                  } ]  
               }  
            }, {  
              "id": "cc257a80-e179-4297-bf7e-179a0944bbab",
              "license":"AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA",
              "hostNetworkSpec": {  
                 "vmNics": [ {  
                     "id": "vmnic0",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1"  
                  }, {  
                     "id": "vmnic1",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1"  
                  }, { 
                     "id": "vmnic2",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2" 
                  }, {  
                     "id": "vmnic3",  
                     "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2"  
                  } ] 
               } 
           } ],     
    "datastoreSpec": {  
        "vsanDatastoreSpec": {  
            "failuresToTolerate": 1,  
            "licenseKey": "BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB",
            "datastoreName": "vSanDatastore" 
         }  
     },  
     "networkSpec": { 
         "vdsSpecs": [ { 
             "name": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1", 
             "portGroupSpecs": [ {  
                 "name": "SDDC-DPortGroup-Mgmt", 
                 "transportType": "MANAGEMENT" 
             }, { 
                 "name": "SDDC-DPortGroup-VSAN",  
                 "transportType": "VSAN" 
             }, {  
                 "name": "SDDC-DPortGroup-vMotion", 
                 "transportType": "VMOTION" 
             } ] 
          },  
          {  
             "name": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2", 
             "portGroupSpecs": [ { 
                "name": "SDDC-DPortGroup-Public", 
                "transportType": "PUBLIC"  } ] 
           } 
        ],  
        "nsxClusterSpec": { 
           "nsxVClusterSpec": {  
              "vlanId": 2237,  
              "vdsNameForVxlanConfig": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1"  
            }  
          }  
        }  
      } ] 
   }, 
  "nsxVSpec" : {
    "nsxManagerSpec" : {
      "name" : "sfo01w01nsx01",
      "networkDetailsSpec" : {
        "ipAddress" : "172.16.225.66",
        "dnsName" : "sfo01w01nsx01.sfo01.rainpole.local",
        "gateway" : "172.16.225.1",
        "subnetMask" : "255.255.255.0"
      }
    },
    "nsxVControllerSpec" : {
      "nsxControllerIps" : [ "172.16.225.121", "172.16.225.122", "172.16.225.123" ],
      "nsxControllerPassword" : "VMw@re123456!",
      "nsxControllerGateway" : "172.16.225.1",
      "nsxControllerSubnetMask" : "255.255.255.0"
    },
    "licenseKey" : "CCCCC-CCCCC-CCCCC-CCCCC-CCCCC",
    "nsxManagerAdminPassword" : "VMw@re1!",
    "nsxManagerEnablePassword" : "VMw@re1!"
  }
}

You can see that the magic happens in the hostNetworkSpec section where you map each vmnic to a vdsName

<p>"hostNetworkSpec": { "vmNics": [ { "id": "vmnic0", "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1" }, { "id": "vmnic1", "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private1" }, { "id": "vmnic2", "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2" }, { "id": "vmnic3", "vdsName": "SDDC-Dswitch-Private2" } ] }</p>

So please try it out and let us know how it goes!

Introducing PowerVCF – A PowerShell Module for the VMware Cloud Foundation API

Its been a while since I’ve posted something so I thought it was about time! Since joining VMware a year ago I’ve been heads down drinking from the firehose, learning from a phenomenal team and generally keeping very busy. More recently I’ve been playing a lot with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). A recent release (3.8) introduced a public API and I started getting field questions on how to leverage it so I started digging. The API has been expanded in 3.9. It is based on the OpenAPI standard (formerly Swagger) and can be accessed through the developer center in the SDDC Manager UI or via code.vmware.com

Now I’m not a developer so I fell back on Postman to do some initial testing. I like Postman as it dumbs it down for us non-devs 🙂 but I wanted something a little easier to consume so i started a little side project called PowerVCF (hat-tip to the far superior PowerNSX, PowerVRA, PowerVRO)

Basically I wanted to provide a simple, efficient, PowerCLI style experience for consuming the VMware Cloud Foundation public API.

Solution?

I am delighted to unleash the first iteration of PowerVCF on the community! Creating this has been a great learning experience for me. In the process I’ve improved my PowerShell skills, learned Git, Markdown and have started looking into CI/CD workflows. It’s also my first submission to the PowerShell Gallery.