Abiquo 6.0
This document refers to VMware hypervisors in private cloud datacenters.
Abiquo can manage VMware hosts at different levels as:
Abiquo can also work with NSX-T to create network configurations such as firewalls, load balancers, and NAT.
Abiquo has been tested with the following latest versions:
Product | Version | Build number | Notes and known issues |
---|---|---|---|
vSphere Client | 7.0.1 | 17004997 |
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ESXi | 7.0.1 | 16850804 | |
NSX-T | 3.1.0 |
| |
NSX-V | 6.4.6 | 14819921 | |
NSX NAT | 6.4.6 | 14819921 | 13252 - Cannot create a firewall on version prior to Abiquo 5.0 |
ESXi 6.x versions prior to 6.7 are supported by Abiquo.
ESXi 5.x versions are NOT supported in Abiquo 5.1.2 and higher versions.
The platform represents the VMware cluster as a physical machine/hypervisor host, and Abiquo does not track the host entities in vCenter. For more details, see Add VMware vCenter clusters as servers
Advantages of vCenter clusters as hosts:
When you add vCenters to Abiquo:
These configurations affect ESXi hosts and apply to vCenter hosts and vCenter clusters.
On the ESXi host, the vNICs must be attached to a vSwitch. For vCenter clusters, you must use a DVS.
Abiquo will automatically create a port group for the host. If your host has already been configured with another vSwitch, you may need to delete the port group before adding the host in Abiquo
Abiquo supports the following datastore types: VMFS and NFS.
In Abiquo 5.2+ as part of the infrastructure check, Abiquo will check datastores. It may automatically disable datastores and later re-enable them.
Abiquo may automatically disable datastores:
To create, update, and delete datastores, refresh the datastores on the host. You can only delete a datastore if it is empty and not attached to the host. To refresh datastores in Abiquo, edit the host, go to the Datastores page, and click the round arrow refresh button.
For vCenter clusters, you should use shared datastores. This will ensure VMs can be moved within the cluster where all hosts can access all datastores.
If you need to work with local datastores, to ensure that VMs can always find a valid local datastore, design a tier with the local datastores of only a specific host, in addition to any shared datastores. Note that you should not create a tier containing local datastores from different hosts.
For troubleshooting notes about datastores, see Troubleshoot when you add VMware servers.
To ignore some datastores:
On the Remote Services server in the abiquo.properties file, set the datastore.ignorebyname property to a Java regular expression string to match the name of the datastores to ignore.
For example, to add an ESXi host or cluster with multiple datastores and ignore two datastores called Backup_1 and Backup_2, set the property as follows.
com.abiquo.esxi.discovery.datastore.ignorebyname=Backup_.*
Abiquo will not check anything to do with these datastores and the datastores will not be available in the platform.
You can also use this property to ignore datastores that are already in the platform. After you restart the Remote Services server, the platform will detect that the datastores are not present on the hypervisor, but you can still use them outside of the platform.
This section describes how the platform manages VM disks (on datastores) and volumes (on external storage).
If you are using external storage volumes via NFS, set the RDM property. See Abiquo Configuration Properties#esxi
When an administrator creates or edits a VM template disk, they can set the Allocation type for the disk. And a user with the privilege to Manage allocation when attaching a disk can select the Allocation type for disks before they deploy the VM. If no allocation type is selected, the default is thin provisioning. Note that disks of captured VMs may use thick provisioning.
The default controllers for ESXi are:
SCSI drivers for persistent disks (persistent primary disks and data volumes) for performance reasons.
Abiquo also supports SATA controllers.
Abiquo requires iSCSI adapters on ESXi. You should check that the appropriate iSCSI adapters were enabled as part of the ESXi installation process. Abiquo recommends that you install the drivers for the appropriate SCSI controllers when preparing VM templates that will be uploaded to the Abiquo platform.
The supported disk controllers are listed in the following table. If there is no menu for controller selection, users can enter the values in the ResourceSubType value column.
ResourceSubType value | diskController saved in template and created on VMware |
---|---|
contains "bus" | VirtualBusLogicController |
contains "paravirtual" | ParaVirtualSCSIController |
contains "sas" | VirtualLsiLogicSASController |
other (default value) | VirtualLsiLogicController |
The priority for the selection of the controllers is:
The default configuration set by the administrator in the abiquo.properties file
# Default VirtualSCSIController implementation when diskController is not # specified. Range [lsilogic, paravirtual, bus, sas] #abiquo.esxi.scsicontroller=lsilogic
LSI Logic Parallel SCSI controller
Notes:
If the user does not set the controller before deployment, Abiquo attaches SCSI disks to the default controller
Users can set multiple controllers but only ONE of each type (e.g. you cannot set two LSI Logic controllers)
Users can change the controller type after it is set
The configuration of SATA controllers is described at: Configure SATA for VMware hypervisors
This includes details of:
To make SATA the default controller:
Set the pluginmetadata disk controller properties for VMware
abiquo.pluginmetadata.{hypervisor_type}.diskControllers=SATA,SCSI,IDE
For each hypervisor type to configure, set the property value, replacing hypervisor_type in the property key with one of the following codes:
Restart the Tomcat server
To move a VM from an IDE controller to a SATA controller, you must first power off the VM.
To resize disks of VMs running on ESXi using Abiquo:
Also note that:
See VMware knowledge base article
Abiquo enables users to manage VM snapshots in the user interface. For a full feature description and configuration details, see Abiquo and VM snapshots for VMware.
See Advanced configuration of VMs on ESXi
To prepare and onboard existing VMs into the platform, see How to import and capture VMs.
The page also describes how to configure Abiquo to onboard VMs with volumes on external storage
The platform supports remote access through VNC and WebMKS.
Log in to the Abiquo Remote Services server (or for a Monolithic installation, log in to the Abiquo Server) and set the appropriate properties for your system to appropriate values in the /opt/abiquo/config/abiquo.properties file:
abiquo.esxi.datastoreRdm abiquo.esxi.datastoreVmFile abiquo.esxi.scsicontroller abiquo.pluginmetadata.{hypervisor_type}.diskControllers com.abiquo.virtualfactory.esxi.timeoutConnectionMs com.abiquo.virtualfactory.esxi.timeoutReadMs abiquo.dvs.portgroup.loadsharingmechanism abiquo.dvs.portgroup.maxsize abiquo.vcenter.port.connection abiquo.esxi.forcehardwareversion
For vCenter hosts, to use NSX-V when it will connect to vCenter, Abiquo will require valid administration credentials and the port if you are not using the default of TCP 443.
Configure the port in the /opt/abiquo/config/abiquo.properties file on the Remote Services servers:
abiquo.vcenter.port.connection = <Port No.>
Configure the firewall to allow access from the Remote Services server to the appropriate port.
Notes: Check VMware password character restrictions
This section applies to versions of VMware before vSphere 7.x, which does not support VNC remote access.
This page describes the VMware ESXi features supported by Abiquo. You can manage VMware technology at the following levels: vCenter (hosts or clusters), vCloud Director.
ESXI feature support
Detect all HostProxySwitch as DVS without requiring a naming convention
Feature | Description |
---|---|
vCenter server | Add vCenter as a master hypervisor with the appropriate credentials, and then add individual hypervisors or clusters as hosts |
dvSwitch | Abiquo will use the vCenter credentials. User must have access to vCenter |
High availability | Abiquo supports vSphere HA |
Fault tolerance | Abiquo does not support fault tolerance because it requires two VMs with the same name to be present in a cluster at the same time. |
Replication | Abiquo supports replication with Zerto. Replicated VMs must be a in a separate cluster. |
Clusters |
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VM live migration |
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Storage live migration | Abiquo detects storage vMotion on all datastores |
Templates |
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DVD | The DVD feature was replaced by the ISO feature but CD-ROM configurations may be supported on imported VMs with IDE and SATA controllers |
Remote access |
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Network drivers |
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Boot |
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CPU hot-add RAM hot-add | With supported guest operating system. The user can mark supported templates and perform hot-add |
Disks hot-reconfigure | With supported guest operating system. The user can mark supported templates and perform hot-reconfigure |
SDN using NSX | Abiquo supports SDN using NSX-V with gateway, ECMP, and NAT configurations. See Configure the NSX integration |
SDN using NSX-T | Abiquo supports SDN using NSX-T. See Configure the Abiquo NSX-T integration |
Snapshots | Abiquo enables users to maintain a snapshot of their VM through the UI. See Abiquo and VM snapshots for VMware v600 |
Feature | Description |
---|---|
Datastores |
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Disk controllers |
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SCSI controllers |
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System disks | By default, for VMs deployed on ESX/ESXi hypervisors:
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Persistent virtual machines | By default persistent VM disks are mounted on IDE controllers
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Disk resize |
Disks must be:
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Storage live migration |
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