NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide Modified on 09 SEP 2021 VMware NSX-T Data Center 3.1 NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware website at: https://docs.vmware.com/ VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.vmware.com © Copyright 2021 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright and trademark information. VMware, Inc. 2 Contents NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide 8 1 Overview of NSX-T Data Center 9 Key Concepts 10 NSX Manager 13 Configure User Interface Settings 16 2 NSX-T Data Center Installation Workflows 18 NSX-T Data Center Workflow for vSphere 18 NSX-T Data Center Installation Workflow for KVM 19 NSX-T Data Center Configuration Workflow for Bare Metal Server 19 3 Preparing for Installation 21 System Requirements 21 NSX Manager VM and Host Transport Node System Requirements 21 NSX Edge VM System Requirements 25 NSX Edge Bare Metal Requirements 27 Bare Metal Server System Requirements 29 Bare Metal Linux Container Requirements 30 Ports and Protocols 30 4 NSX Manager Installation 31 Modifying the Default Admin Password Expiration 35 5 NSX Manager Cluster Requirements 37 Cluster Requirements for an Individual Site 38 Cluster Requirements for Multiple Sites 39 6 Installing NSX Manager Cluster on vSphere 41 Install NSX Manager and Available Appliances 41 Install NSX Manager on ESXi Using the Command-Line OVF Tool 45 Configure an Appliance to Display the GRUB Menu at Boot Time 51 Log In to the Newly Created NSX Manager 51 Add a Compute Manager 52 Deploy NSX Manager Nodes to Form a Cluster from the UI 56 Configure a Virtual IP Address for a Cluster 63 Configuring an External Load Balancer 65 Disable Snapshots on an NSX Appliance 66 VMware, Inc. 3 NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide 7 Installing NSX Manager Cluster on KVM 67 Set Up KVM 67 Manage Your Guest VMs in the KVM CLI 70 Deploy an NSX Manager Cluster on KVM 71 Install NSX Manager on KVM 71 Form an NSX Manager Cluster Using the CLI 77 8 Transport Zones and Profiles 80 Create Transport Zones 80 Create an IP Pool for Tunnel Endpoint IP Addresses 82 Enhanced Data Path 84 Configuring Profiles 87 Create an Uplink Profile 87 Configuring Network I/O Control Profiles 91 Add an NSX Edge Cluster Profile 100 Add an NSX Edge Bridge Profile 101 Add a Transport Node Profile 102 VMkernel Migration to an N-VDS Switch 108 VMkernel Migration Errors 113 9 Host Transport Nodes 117 Manual Installation of NSX-T Data Center Kernel Modules 117 Manually Install NSX-T Data Center Kernel Modules on ESXi Hypervisors 117 Manually Install NSX-T Data Center Software Packages on Ubuntu KVM Hypervisors 121 Manually Install NSX-T Data Center Software Packages on RHEL, CentOS, and Oracle Linux KVM Hypervisors 122 Manually Install NSX-T Data Center Software Packages on SUSE KVM Hypervisors 123 Install Third-Party Packages on a KVM Host 124 Verify Open vSwitch Version on RHEL, CentOS, or Oracle Linux KVM Hosts 126 Verify Open vSwitch Version on SUSE KVM Hosts 127 Verify Open vSwitch Version on Ubuntu KVM Hosts 128 Preparing Physical Servers as NSX-T Data Center Transport Nodes 129 Install Third-Party Packages on a Physical Server 130 Configure a Physical Server as Transport Node Through UI 132 Ansible Server Configuration for Physical Server 137 Create Application Interface for Physical Server Workloads 138 Secure Workloads on Windows Server 2016/2019 Bare Metal Servers 138 Preparing ESXi and KVM Hosts as Transport Nodes 141 Prepare Standalone Hosts as Transport Nodes 141 Prepare a vSphere Distributed Switch for NSX-T 145 Prepare ESXi Cluster Hosts as Transport Nodes 146 VMware, Inc. 4 NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide Migrate VMkernels and Physical NICs to a vSphere Distributed Switch 153 Prepare Clusters for VLAN and Overlay Micro-segmentation 155 Configure an ESXi Host Transport Node with Link Aggregation 157 Deploy a Fully Collapsed vSphere Cluster NSX-T on Hosts Running N-VDS Switches 158 Managing Transport Nodes 168 Switch Visualization 168 NSX Maintenance Mode 169 Migrate ESXi VMkernel and Physical Adapters 169 Health Check VLAN ID Ranges and MTU Settings 170 View Bidirectional Forwarding Detection Status 174 Verify the Transport Node Status 174 10 Installing NSX Edge 178 NSX Edge Installation Requirements 178 NSX Edge Networking Setup 181 NSX Edge Installation Methods 187 Create an NSX Edge Transport Node 188 Create an NSX Edge Cluster 193 Install an NSX Edge on ESXi Using the vSphere GUI 194 Install NSX Edge on ESXi Using the Command-Line OVF Tool 198 Install NSX Edge via ISO File as a Virtual Appliance 203 Install NSX Edge on Bare Metal 206 Prepare a PXE Server for NSX Edge 207 Install NSX Edge Automatically via ISO File 211 Install NSX Edge Interactively via ISO File 215 Intel QAT Support for IPSec VPN Bulk Cryptography 217 Join NSX Edge with the Management Plane 218 Configure an NSX Edge as a Transport Node 220 11 vSphere Lifecycle Manager with NSX-T 222 Prepare an NSX-T Cluster with vSphere Lifecycle Manager 223 Enable vSphere Lifecycle Manager on an NSX-T Cluster 225 NSX-T with vSphere Lifecycle Manager Scenarios 228 vSphere Lifecycle Manager Failed to Prepare a Host for NSX-T Networking 229 vSphere Lifecycle Manager Failed to Prepare NSX-T Cluster 230 Delete a NSX-T Depot on vCenter Server 230 12 Host Profile integration with NSX-T 232 Auto Deploy Stateless Cluster 232 High-Level Tasks to Auto Deploy Stateless Cluster 232 Prerequisites and Supported Versions 233 VMware, Inc. 5 NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide Create a Custom Image Profile for Stateless Hosts 234 Associate the Custom Image with the Reference and Target Hosts 235 Set Up Network Configuration on the Reference Host 236 Configure the Reference Host as a Transport Node in NSX-T 237 Extract and Verify the Host Profile 240 Verify the Host Profile Association with Stateless Cluster 241 Update Host Customization 241 Trigger Auto Deployment on Target Hosts 242 Troubleshoot Host Profile and Transport Node Profile 251 Stateful Servers 254 Supported NSX-T and ESXi versions 254 Prepare a Target Stateful Cluster 255 VMkernel Migration with Host Profile Applied 256 VMkernel Migration without Host Profile Applied 258 13 Getting Started with NSX Federation 259 NSX Federation Key Concepts 259 NSX Federation Requirements 260 Configuring the Global Manager and Local Managers 261 Install the Active and Standby Global Manager 262 Make the Global Manager Active and Add Standby Global Manager 264 Add a Location 265 Remove a Location 271 14 Getting Started with NSX Cloud 273 NSX Cloud Architecture and Components 274 Overview of Deploying NSX Cloud 275 Deploy NSX-T Data Center On-Prem Components 275 Install CSM 276 Join CSM with NSX Manager 276 Specify CSM IPs for Access by PCG 277 (Optional) Configure Proxy Servers 277 (Optional) Set Up vIDM for Cloud Service Manager 278 Connect your Public Cloud with On-prem NSX-T Data Center 279 Deploy NSX Cloud Components in Microsoft Azure using the NSX Cloud Marketplace Image 281 Deploy NSX Cloud Components in Microsoft Azure using Terraform scripts 283 Deploy NSX Cloud Components in Microsoft Azure without using Terraform scripts 288 Add your Public Cloud Account 292 Adding your Microsoft Azure Subscription 293 Adding your AWS Account 299 Managing Regions in CSM 303 VMware, Inc. 6 NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide NSX Public Cloud Gateway: Architecture and Modes of Deployment 304 Deploy PCG or Link to a PCG 308 Deploy PCG in a VNet 308 Deploy PCG in a VPC 310 Link to a Transit VPC or VNet 313 Auto-Configurations after PCG Deployment or Linking 315 Auto-created NSX-T Logical Entities 315 Auto-created Public Cloud Configurations 318 Integrate Horizon Cloud Service with NSX Cloud 320 Auto-Created Entities After Horizon Cloud Integration 323 (Optional) Install NSX Tools on your Workload VMs 326 Undeploy or Unlink PCG 326 Remove the nsx.network tag in the Public Cloud 327 Disable Quarantine Policy in the NSX Enforced Mode 327 Delete User-created Logical Entities 328 Undeploy or Unlink from CSM 328 Troubleshooting PCG Undeployment 328 15 Uninstalling NSX-T Data Center from a Host Transport Node 330 Verify Host Network Mappings for Uninstall 331 Migrate Out VMkernels and Physical NICs from a vSphere Distributed Switch 333 Uninstall NSX-T Data Center from a vSphere Cluster 335 Uninstall NSX-T Data Center from a Host in a vSphere Cluster 339 Uninstall NSX-T Data Center from an ESXi Host 342 Triggering Uninstallation from the vSphere Web Client 344 Uninstall NSX-T Data Center from a KVM Host 346 Uninstall NSX-T from a vSphere Lifecycle Manager cluster through NSX Manager 347 16 Troubleshooting Installation Issues 349 Installation Fails Due to Insufficient Space in Bootbank on ESXi Host 349 NSX Agent Times Out Communicating with NSX Manager 350 VMware, Inc. 7 NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide The NSX-T Data Center Installation Guide describes how to install the VMware NSX-T™ Data Center product. The information includes step-by-step configuration instructions and suggested best practices. Intended Audience This information is intended for anyone who wants to install or use NSX-T Data Center. This information is written for experienced system administrators who are familiar with virtual machine technology and network virtualization concepts. Technical Publications Glossary VMware Technical Publications provides a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to you. For definitions of terms as they are used in VMware technical documentation, go to https:// www.vmware.com/topics/glossary. Related Documentation You can find the VMware NSX® Intelligence™ documentation at https://docs.vmware.com/en/ VMware-NSX-Intelligence/index.html.