VMware NSX Installation and Configuration Part 6 – Prepare Host Clusters for NSX

Host preparation is the process in which the NSX Manager

1) Installs NSX kernel modules on ESXi hosts that are members of vCenter clusters and

2) Builds the NSX control-plane and management-plane fabric. NSX kernel modules packaged in VIB files run within the hypervisor kernel and provide services such as distributed routing, distributed firewall, and VXLAN bridging capabilities.

To prepare your environment for network virtualization, you must install network infrastructure components on a per-cluster level for each vCenter server where needed. This deploys the required software on all hosts in the cluster. When a new host is added to this cluster, the required software is automatically installed on the newly added host.

Procedure

1 In vCenter, navigate to Home > Networking & Security > Installation and select the Host Preparation tab.

2 For all clusters that will require NSX logical switching, routing, and firewalls, click the gear icon and click Install

When the installation is complete, the Installation Status column displays 6.2 Uninstall and the Firewall column displays Enabled. Both columns have a green check mark. If you see Resolve in the Installation Status column, click Resolve and then refresh your browser window.

VIBs are installed and registered with all hosts within the prepared cluster: n esx-vsip n esx-vxlan To verify, SSH to each host and run the:

esxcli software vib list | grep esx command. In addition to displaying the VIBs, this command shows the version of the VIBs installed.