VMware Cloud Builder - Logging and Log Collection

VMware Cloud Builder is used to automate the deployment of VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Validated Designs, during the initial bringup phase both solutions use the same components of the VMware Cloud Builder appliance:

• JsonGenerator - used to take the Excel file and generate the JSON file used by the bringup service
• PlatformAudit - used to perform both validation on the JSON file and the physical environment
• Bringup - orchestration service that carries out the installation and configuration of the VMware components

Each of these components generate log files, should you encounter issues then these log files can be used to perform your troubleshooting and can also be provided to VMware Global Support Services (GSS).

The following illustrates the key path locations:

Component	Log Name	Location
JsonGenerator	jsongenerator-[time-stamp]	/var/log/vmware/vcf/sddc-support/
PlatformAudit	platform-audit-[time-stamp]	/var/log/vmware/vcf/sddc-support/
Bringup Service	vcf-bringup.log	/opt/vmware/bringup/logs/
	vcf-bringup-debug.log	/opt/vmware/bringup/logs/
	rest-api-debug.log	/opt/vmware/bringup/logs/
Web UI	server.log	/opt/vmware/vvd/vvd-ui/server/user_data/logs/
	access.log	/opt/vmware/vvd/vvd-ui/server/user_data/logs/

In addition to reviewing the log files locally you can also generate a log bundle that can be provided to GSS, this is done using the Supportability and Serviceability Utility (SoS) from the command line of the appliance as follows:

1. Connect to the VMware Cloud Builder Appliance using an SSH utility such as Putty.
2. Login using admin and enter your password.
3. Switch to root using su and enter your password.
4. Change into the SoS Utility folder:
  cd /opt/vmware/sddc-support

5.Execute SoS to collect the logs
 ./sos --cloud-builder-logs 

VMware Cloud Builder Version Matrix

Last Updated: 26-Apr-2019
 
VMware Cloud Builder supports both VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Validated Design deployments each of which have their own version numbers. VMware Cloud Builder also has its own version and build number and as we release new versions keeping track of which version supports which VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Validated Design will become difficult. In attempt to keep track of this and help our customers I've created the below table:

VMware Cloud Builder	Version: 1.0.0.0 Build: 11852205	Version: 1.0.0.1 Build: 12915705	Version: 2.0.0.0 Build: 12696155
VMware Cloud Foundation	X	X	v3.7.0
VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail
VMware Validated Design	v5.0.0	v5.0.0	v5.0.1
VMware Validated Design on VxRail	v5.0.0 (Region A Only)

Installing PowerCLI 6.5.1

I recently had a requirement to get VMware PowerCLI installed and configured in order to work on developing some scripts. VMware introduced a new way of performing the installation which is well documented on the VMware official blog post however its still took me a little bit of time to work out the actual procedure. After a bit of googling and experimenting I decided to document the steps for future reference.

Platform: Windows Server 2012 R2 & Windows Server 2016

1. Determine the version of PowerShell currently installed, if your not running PoweShell 5.1 then perform step 2.

$PSVersionTable.PSVersion

2. Update PowerShell, in order to install modules using the new PowerShell Library I needed to update the version of PowerShell, this is done by installing a newer WMF. Download and install the WMF 5.1 package. 

3. Set the PowerShell execution policy to 'RemoteSigned'

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Confirm:$false -Force

4. To install the new PowerCLI for all users, open an administrative PowerShell session and use the -Scope command for AllUsers.

Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI -Scope AllUsers

5.  To import the modules and start using them run the following command:

Get-Module -Name VMware* -ListAvailable | Import-Module

6. To remove the 'Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)' message run the following command:

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -Scope AllUsers -ParticipateInCEIP $true -Confirm:$false

Quick Fix - VMware Client Integration Plugin Stops Working (vSphere 6 U1)

I recently had some issues trying to install the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) using the latest Update 1 release of vSphere.

The first problem I had was that even though I had the VMware Client Integration Plugin installed, on launching the install wizard it would not get detected. I had seen this issue in the past and started to do some research but was not able to find anything at the time to help fix but overcome it by switching from Firefox to IE on that occasion, but this time I decided to have a dig around again and was pleseantly surpised to find a new KB2125623 article released on the 10-Sep-2015 with the fix.

With my second problem the issue itself did not appear when first launching the install wizard but rather after supplying the details for the target ESXi host in the Connect to target server dialog I got a yellow error banner across the top with no message.




On this occasion I reached out to William Lam as I knew he had been doing some testing himself and he made me aware of an issue he had found where VMware Client Integration Plugin stopped functioning after update 45 of Chrome see his post http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2015/09/quick-tip-fix-for-cip-no-longer-functioning-in-vsphere-web-client-after-chrome-45-update.htm. It turned out that the issue had been already identified and an updated version of the VMware Client Intergration Plugin was needed to address it, whilst his post includes the links I thought I would add here also.

Client Integration Plugin for Windows:

• http://vsphereclient.vmware.com/vsphereclient/2/9/9/4/0/4/1/VMware-ClientIntegrationPlugin-6.0.0.exe

Client Integration Plugin for Mac OS X

• http://vsphereclient.vmware.com/vsphereclient/2/9/9/4/0/4/1/VMware-ClientIntegrationPlugin-6.0.0.mac64.dmg