Deploy NSX-T Manager on Ubuntu KVM

In this post, I will show you how to deploy NSX-T Manager on Ubuntu KVM hypervisor. I have already covered the NSX-T Manager installation on the ESXi hosts in the following blog posts. You may go through the following posts on how to do the installation on ESXi.

Yes, the NSX-T manager deployment is supported on the KVM hypervisor. In a heterogeneous environment you may choose to deploy it on the ESXi or KVM hypervisors, both are supported

NSX-T supports KVM in two ways:

As a host transport node
As a host for NSX Manager and NSX Controller. [NSX Edges deployment on KVM is NOT SUPPORTED]

Supported KVM Versions to Deploy NSX-T Manager:

RHEL 7.4
Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS

Preparing Ubuntu KVM host to deploy NSX-T Manager:

Required packages on Ubuntu:

Once the Ubuntu is installed install the following packages on the Ubuntu OS.

root@kvm-03a:~# # apt-get install -y qemu-kvm libvirt-bin ubuntu-vm-builder bridge-utils virtinst virt-manager virt-viewer libguestfs-tools

Check the host hardware compatibility:

Check the hardware virtualization compatibility with the following command:

root@kvm-03a:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo | egrep "vmx|svm"

Verify the KVM Module:

root@kvm-03a:~# kvm-ok
INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used

Configuring the KVM host Networking:

For KVM to be used as a host for NSX Manager or NSX Controller, prepare the bridge network, management interface, and NIC interfaces.

Edit the /etc/network/interfaces configuration file

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto ens160
iface eth0 inet manual
iface br0 inet static
address 192.168.110.56
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.110.0
broadcast 192.168.110.255
gateway 192.168.110.1
dns-nameservers 192.168.110.10
dns-search corp.local
bridge_ports ens160
bridge_stp off
bridge_fd 0
bridge_maxwait 0
auto ens192
iface ens192 inet manual
auto br0

Edit /etc/network/interfaces configuration file

The ens160 interface is used for management connectivity and the ens192 interface will be used for the Overlay traffic.

Defining bridge on Ubuntu host:

Create a network definition xml file for the bridge. For example, create a /var/lib/libvirt/images/bridge.xml with the following lines:

root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images# vi bridge.xml

<network>
<name>bridge</name>
<forward mode='bridge'/>
<bridge name='br0'/>
</network>

Define and start the bridge network:

root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images/# virsh net-define /var/lib/libvirt/images/bridge.xml
root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images/# virsh net-start bridge
root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images/# virsh net-autostart bridge

Check bridge network status:

root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images/# virsh net-list --all
Name State Autostart Persistent
----------------------------------------------------------
bridge active yes yes
default active yes yes

To Configure KVM as a transport node, prepare the network bridge.

Edit /etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto ens160
iface eth0 inet manual
iface br0 inet static
address 192.168.110.56
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.110.0
broadcast 192.168.110.255
gateway 192.168.110.1
dns-nameservers 192.168.110.10
dns-search corp.local
bridge_ports ens160
bridge_stp off
bridge_fd 0
bridge_maxwait 0
auto ens192
iface ens192 inet manual
auto br0

Deploying NSX-T Manager on Ubuntu KVM

Prerequisites:

Install all the required packages
Prepare the host Networking
Privileges to deploy a QCOW2 image
Download NSX Manager QCOW2 image

Step 1: Download the NSX Manager QCOW2 image:

Click the below link to download the NSX-T Manager QCOW2 image:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/networking_security/vmware_nsx_t_data_center/2_x

Step 2: Add the currently logged in user as a libvirtd user on Ubuntu KVM host

Note: Adding root user to the libvirtd group is only for KVM running on Ubuntu

root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images# adduser $USER libvirtd

In the same directory where you saved the QCOW2 image, create a file called guestinfo (with no file extension) and populate it with the NSX Manager VM’s properties.

Example for the guestinfo file:

root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images# vi guestinfo

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Environment
xmlns="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/environment/1"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:oe="http://schemas.dmtf.org/ovf/environment/1">
<PropertySection>
<Property oe:key="nsx_allowSSHRootLogin" oe:value="True"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_cli_passwd_0" oe:value="VMware1!"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_passwd_0" oe:value="VMware1!"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_dns1_0" oe:value="192.168.110.10"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_domain_0" oe:value="corp.local"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_gateway_0" oe:value="192.168.110.1"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_hostname" oe:value="nsxmgr-01a"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_role" oe:value="nsx-manager"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_ip_0" oe:value="192.168.110.201"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_isSSHEnabled" oe:value="True"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_netmask_0" oe:value="255.255.255.0"/>
<Property oe:key="nsx_ntp_0" oe:value="192.168.110.10"/>
</PropertySection>
</Environment>

Step 4: Use guestfish to write the guestinfo file into the QCOW2 image.

root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images# guestfish --rw -i -a /var/lib/libvirt/images/nsx-unified-appliance-2.2.0.0.0.8680778.qcow2 upload /var/lib/libvirt/images/guestinfo /config/guestinfo

Write the guestinfo configuration to the QCOW2 image with guestfish

Step 5: Deploy the QCOW2 image with the virt-install command

root@kvm-03a:/var/lib/libvirt/images# virt-install --import --name nsxmgr-01a --ram 16348 --vcpus 4 --network=bridge:br0,model=e1000 --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/nsx-unified-appliance-2.2.0.0.0.8680778.qcow2,format=qcow2 --nographics

Starting install...
Creating domain...
Connected to domain nsxmgr-01a
Escape character is ^]

VMware NSX Unified Appliance 2.2.0.0.0.8680778 - release - ttyS0
nsxmgr-01a login: admin
Password: