Quick Lab Tip: Deploy VCF workload domain with single NSX Manager
In this post I will share a quick tip on how I've managed to deploy a VCF Workload Domain with a single NSX Manager, instead of the standard three.
Warning
Do not use this trick in production. Neither Broadcom nor me support this deployment. This is purely for testing with limited resources, you have been warned!
The trick is to SSH into your SDDC Manager using the vcf user, and the password used during bring-up of the management domain.
When logged in, run su - and log in as root using the password used during bring-up.
Once you are logged in, you can open the /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application-prod.properties using an editor like vi. So in our case, let's run: vi /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application-prod.properties.
Once you have done that, hit i in your keyboard to go into insert mode.
Go to the bottom of the file, and append the following:
1nsxt.manager.formfactor=medium
2nsxt.manager.resources.validation.skip=true
3nsxt.manager.cluster.size=1
4nsxt.manager.wait.minutes=120
This will make it so that any workload domain you deploy has one NSX Manager, and that it uses a smaller size. Once done, hit ESC in your keyboard, then type :wq and hit enter to save the file. (w = write, q = quit).
Then run systemctl restart domainmanager and you are good to go!
This worked in my nested Cloud Foundation deployment in my lab running 5.2.1.0.
Note
You will still have to fill in the information for the extra nodes in the UI, and the same counts for when using the API, otherwise the pre-checks will fail.
This was it for this post, more is coming so stay tuned!