The easiest way to deploy vSphere Integrated Containers is from the vSphere GUI. However, right now there is a bug in vSphere 6.5 that throws the error below when you try and launch the tool to deploy the ovf file.
This version of vCenter Server does not support Deploy OVF Template using this version of vSphere Web Client. To Deploy OVF Template, login with version 6.5.0.0 of vSphere Web Client.
This appears to be a know bug that is documented by vmware here. You can upgrade to 6.5b to resolve the issue. However, if you want to deploy via the GUI in the meantime you can do the following.
Log on to the GUI of one of your ESX nodes directly: https://<node ipaddress>
Click Create / register VM and it will launch the following screen:
Select Deploy a virtual machine from an OVF or OVA file and hit next.
On this screen give your new VM a name and ‘drag and drop’ the ova file to be deployed into the window as above and hit next.
Select your data store. In my case I only have the one which is my vSan Datastore. Then click next.
Agree to the terms and conditions and click next.
Now you need to select a network. This is one of the areas where deploying from the ESX node does not work as you would plan. If you are running a distributed switch, you cant select the correct network from the ESX node. You can only choose the default vm network. Thats ok as we can change it later. Leave the other options as they are and click next.
You are now on the additional settings screen and this is where we need to enter the specific parameters for VIC.
Enter a root password and permit root login. I always choose to permit the root login as I like to be able to log in and take a look around. I have used this to debut issues in the past.
Fill out the network details and and enter the fully qualified domain name for your new VM.
Choose a password for both the registry admin site and the database. I also ticked the garbage collection option. I have left the SSL options blang as I don’t wish to use my own SSL cert at this time.
You can also deploy the management portal which is the default setting. It is a useful portal that adds a bit if a wizard and GUI to the administration of containers and container hosts. Again I left the SSL options blank.
The final options are the file server port and SSL options. I always leave these at their defaults. The file server is used to download the vic-machine tools that you will need to deploy container hosts later.
The final screen will give you a summary of the values you entered and you can now click finish if you are happy with the details. It is worth taking a note of the ports in use as you will need them later.
Once it starts installing you will see the following progress bars. As yet I have not gotten to the bottom of the “reconfig VM” error but it doesn’t appear to have any impact.
Once the install is finished, move the VM to the correct network. In my case it is the network called management.
We can see from the console that we now have a successfully deployed VIC VM. We can connect to the registry and management portals now.
