Due to high demand, here’s the combined AAA deployment!

I think this may be the highest requested post I’ve had so far. After creating the Dynamic deployment of the App Authoring Agent (AAA for the rest of this post) on Linux using SSH, the demand for a windows, or more importantly combined solution was flooding my inbox.

Quick DISCLAIMER based on internal tests by colleagues this works well but does open up two key points.

1. You must have access to port 5480 on your vRA Virtual Appliance from the guest operating systems that you are planning to use.
2. This also requires that if you are using in a load balanced vRA Virtual Appliance environment that you will need to choose a single VA to pull the agent installs from.

As you might imagine windows was a bit more difficult to over come the remote execution and had a number of manual steps. If you haven’t checked it out yet I highly recommend you take a look at my automation script remove the need for those manual steps. That automation script is what enabled me to complete this post!

So let’s get the pre-req/assumptions out of the way.

• First you must be running vRA 7
• The supported windows version with the script is 2012 R2 only
• Have a working knowledge of vRO and how to import packages
• Internet access for your guests and vRA (the scripts used actually pull down the latest ps1 script)
• This guide already has way too many screenshots so I expect you can check boxes, click next, click finish, and entitle catalog items

Step 1. Download and Import the following package into your vRO environment

This includes both my ExtendingClouds workflows as well as the Guest Script Manager package that we use to execute our scripts inside the guests. I highly recommend using this instead of the standard run program in guest workflows.

Step 2. Log into vRO and expand Extendingclouds Examples -> helpers
Edit the GSM – Linux workflow

Step 3. In the General tab
Edit the vmUsername and vmPassword

Step 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the GSM – Windows extendingclouds workflow
Edit the GSM – Windows workflow

Step 5. In the General tab
Edit the vmUsername and vmPassword

Step 6. Edit the AAA onBuildSuccess workflow

Step 7. In the General tab
Verify the linScriptConfigurationResource points to the AAA for Linux
Verify the winScriptConfigurationResource points to the AAA for Windows

Step 8. Go to the Schema tab
Edit the logic scriptable task

Step 9. Go to the Scripting tab
Alter the password variable

The agent uses a service user to initiate the bootstrap service. This user is named darwin and this variable will define the password for that service user.

We have now completed all of the tasks in vRA, time to jump into vRA with a privledged user.

Step 10. Go to Administration -> Property Dictionary

Step 11. Property Groups -> Add New

Step 12. Assign a name (id will be auto populated)
We will have to create 3 new entries, none of which should be overridable.
custom.appliance.fqdn with a value of your fully qualified vRA Appliance
custom.iaas.fqdn with a value of your IaaS/Model Manager windows server
Extensibility.Lifecycle.Properties.VMPSMasterWorkflow32.VMPSMasterWorkflow32 with a value of *

The last one is needed to pass these properties to vRA for the logic to execute during the onBuildSuccess event.

Step 13. Go to design tab
Select your blueprint and copy

Step 14. Enter the new name you would like for this blueprint

Step 15. Properties -> Property Groups -> + New

Step 16. Select the Group you created in Step 12

Step 17. Go to Custom Properties

custom.os with a value of linux or windows and not overridable

Step 18. Drag software component onto your OS, if you don’t have a software component defined yet just go check out the sample exchange

This is our growing community driven place where you can download and upload content like blueprints.

Step 19. Don’t forget to Publish

Step 20. Go to Administration -> Events

Step 21. Subscriptions -> +New

Step 22. Select Machine provisioning

Step 23. Select Run based on conditions

All of the following

Expand Data->Lifecycle state-> Select Lifecycle state event

Step 24. Select Equals

Step 25. Select VMPSMasterWorkflow32.VMPSMasterWorkflow32.EVENT.onBuildSuccess

Step 26. Add a condition

Type out in the text field data~machine~properties~agent.download.url

This looks for the specific property, which is only available when a software component is present on the request.

Check the green check mark to apply

Step 27. Select Contains

Step 28. Enter http in the text field.

The url always contains an http if that property is defined

Step 29. Select the AAA onBuildSuccess workflow

Step 30. Check the Blocking box and set a timeout of 20 minutes

Step 31. Don’t forget to Publish

With this complete you can utilize any software component and you won’t need to maintain any separate template in vCenter. Welcome to the nirvana that vRA 7 and EB have opened up!

If you would like to see exactly how I built this out I’ve got a step by step video available here.