vCenter Orchestrator appliance: installation

I have some problems configuring it, so I thought I document it.

Orchestrator needs 4 users with the following default passwords:

• root. Password is vmware. This is for the base Linux appliance config.
• vmware. Password is vmware. This is for the Orchestrator config.
• vcoadmin. Password is vcoadmin. This is for Orchestrator administrator, in the Orchestrator client.
• The admin used to start the plug-in. I use my domain ID irahabok as it won’t accept vcoadmin and vmware in my case. It did accept vcoadmin until I changed the default LDAP with my MS AD.

The screenshot below shows where the 3 users are used.

If you click Orchestrator Configuration link, you get the screen below. User is vmware, not vcoadmin.

The appliance does not come with the vCenter plug-in enabled. You can see it is grey. Click “Apply changes” at the bottom corner.

Also notice that the default user name “vcoadmin”. This does not work in my case, and I have to use my domain ID. This because I configured MS AD after that and that changed the default LDAP.

It is enabled now. Next step is to configure it.

The message “will perform installation at next server startup” refers to the vCO server, not vCenter server. You don’t need to restart the vCenter servers, and it works for both vCenter appliance and Windows.

You need to do this for every vCenter servers.

From the manual: The user that you select must be a valid user with administrative privileges on your vCenter Server, preferably at the top of the vCenter Server tree structure. Orchestrator uses these credentials to monitor

the vCenter Web service, typically to operate Orchestrator system workflows. All other requests inherit the credentials of the user who triggers an action.

Need to restart the service. If it does not work, restart the entire VM.

To add the vCenter, you need to add the certificate. Else you get an error. To add it, simply add the IP address (or host name) of the vCenter. In my case, it is 172.16.100.11. Then click import. A screen will be shown, click import.

Once done, you will see the result like the one below.

Since I modified the LDAP to MS AD, I need to change the user.

To login to Orchestrator, launch the Java client.

I don’t have the fat client as you can use the standalone Orchestrator client installer on a 32-bit machine only. My admin client is 64 bit Windows 7.

You will see something like this when you launch the client. You can get multiple vCenters registered. It is not shown here, but I have 2 vCenter registered.

You should also see the workflow listed under Workflows. You can expand it, and see the list of workflows. The screenshot below shows a workflow for creating a custom VM.