Auto Deploy 5.1 with standalone vCSA as Auto Deploy server

By john

While trying to setup a pair of vCenter Server Appliances (vCSA) I noticed that the documentation was confusing and incorrect. My goal was to have one vCSA as the vCenter Server, and another as the Auto Deploy Server.

  1. You need to make sure that the Auto Deploy service is not running on the vCSA that you are using as your vCenter.  If you already have the Auto Deploy service running on your vCSA that you are using as your vCenter, you need to unregistered it from the local vCenter and set the service to not auto start. service vmware-rbd-watchdog stop chkconfig vmware-rbd-watchdog off autodeploy-register –unregister -a localhost -l

  2. On the vCSA that you are using as your Auto Deploy server you must register with the vCenter Server service vmware-rbd-watchdog stop autodeploy-register –register -a <<Your vCenter IP Address>> -u <USERNAME> -w <PASSWORD> service vmware-rbd-watchdog start