Installing Platform services controller

In the previous post I discussed the reference architecture and design tips for the PSC.  Here are all the posts in the series:

In this article I will setup four platform services controllers at two sites.   In my home lab I didn’t want to create complexity by using two different routed networks so I left them on the same subnet but created two sites inside the domain.   By the end of this article I will have created:

Four PSC’s at two sites.   So lets get into the install:

I will use the 6.0 appliance for this article.  ​​​​ Before starting I have setup DNS for all the names both forward and reverse. ​​ 

Connect to the ESXi host:

Name here is the name that​​ will show up in vCenter

Choose a PSC

Creating a new SSO domain and calling it vsphere.local with the site name of site1

I changed the IP after this screenshot so it should read 192.168.10.160 and because it’s a demo I am syncing with my ESXi host.. in a real situation you want to sync with NTP. ​​ 

After installer is complete try to visit the web page for the newly installed PSC. ​​ If you don’t get this page remove the PSC and try again. ​​ Error handling is not the best.

 

 

I enabled ssh (if you​​ forgot login to the console and enable there) so I ssh’ed into the new PSC to perform some checks. ​​ Remember to use shell.set ---enabled True to enable bash shell then type shell to enter it.

Change the directory to /usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/ ​​ and​​ execute the command vdcrepadmin as shown to identify all PSC’s in the domain

The command showpartners shows the replication partners (which don’t exist yet)

Psc2.griffiths.local

We are going to join current domain I will not repeat screen shots that​​ are redundant.  ​​​​ The key thing to notice here is that I am creating a replication agreement between psc1 and psc2 that is bi-directional (does the PSC support uni-directional replication: NO – can you do it yes..) ​​ 

Here we are joining the PSC domain and entering the name of it’s initial replication partner: